" WAKING " THE DEAD.

NZ Truth, Issue 129, 7 December 1907, Page 6

" WAKING " THE DEAD.

Emma Western's Worry. ?, f? 'A' wake, or a drunk", or an orgie,or whatever it might be called, had a' sequel m ChristchurclL this iweek. Some old women .were moani sng over the remains of a bloke tha/fcJiad died;, it was one of the lady's blokes, and she had never gone ••through the ceremony of marriage iwith him. Anyhow, he was as dead as a tombstone. It happened just [then that a well-known prostitute re- i ceived the sum of £25 from the Bank ■ot Australasia, sent by somebody oh other, and when she heard of her! friend's loss she became overwhelmed with grief, and parted up the stuff for a spree ; nobody quaffed water or any beverage of that sort. In the •midst of the guzzling who should, walk m ]wt a .neighbor named Emma Wes-'l rton, who is a prohibited person. -The Uady didn't want ' : j TO VIEW THE CORPSE as much as she wanted to view the grog on exhibition. Anyhow she pickEd up a glassful of hops and buried 1 it m her- innards. Then, saying "Oood-night," she copped a bottle of !the same stingo and marched off. to her adjacent domicile with' . at,, the cork literally bursting to be drawn. There was an arrest of one or two of the old crones for plain drunk that night, and on Tuesday they were charged - with supplying Jdrink to Emma ; so they struck a i* 'double", on the same night, so to speak— two fines that is, and, m spor-ting-parlance, as there was a corpse m the room it proved a dead'un. Ma--sistrat© Bay, m fining the delinquents, described these dead menls suppers, or wakes, or whatever they were, as low drinking bouts. If his Worship attended a real Irish jvvakev he would discover that his hair, had grown m about 3-\ seconds.