BRIDGET'S BEER.

NZ Truth, Issue 117, 14 September 1907, Page 6

BRIDGET'S BEER.

Takes the Pledge Once Alone, In Chri&tcliurch this week a woman ■has bobbed up serenely' m all the blue, sordid gloominess and melancholy that a Court inspires, and said : "Yes, your Wortctiip" to a question as to whether she had been gutter drunk. Whoever invented the word "Wortchip" .Vac writer doesn't know, hut it must have, been a warsman, and he was quite obviously half-seas over. However, Bridget O'Brien has been' practically off ,t i he booze for a twelve month, except now and again when she foroice the blue-papered pledge of a courtly life m the shape of a prohib order. She gets strong on the wins, doe's Bridget, and although/ lief people are respectable,, she doesn't care a damn for them. Her board money is paid to her son-in-law, and he' got up m 'Court the other day and wanted her committed to the Nazareth Home, but the lady refused to be committed worth a cent. Wfoy should she be shut away IN THAT CLOISTERED SHOW for a year away from city life, wiMchl she. prized m her declining years ? Net a bit of it ; so the S.M. intimated that if she -wouldn't go he had no power to send her. .Also, as she hadin't besn up for over a year he would decline to punish her ; so shewas convicted and discharged on condition that she would have a prchib. order issued against her. Bridgetical person- Acquiescence followed, she signed the Court cheque, or whatever Mr Orderly Scully calls it, and the parade passed on. It seems to he the halbit of persons to shunt their relatives on to Homes these days. And the Homes don't charge nearly what the persons get for their keep. So the difference is clear profit.. woman herself gets nix. .