THE CRITIC.

NZ Truth, Issue 244, 26 February 1910, Page 1

THE CRITIC.

Who eanuodaunted brave the Critic's rage? Ornote unmoved hismentioniatbeCritic's t&g#T Parade bis error m the public eyeT And Mother Grnndy'srage defy? The refreshing news comes from France that a mistaike . made by a jury was .the result of an error. Generally jurors, make mistakes with their eyes open, and look as serious as Sphinxes. •i< a ( The parents of a Hindu child m Madras were fined recently for having sold their child for 5s 4d. What was wrong ? iProi bably the authorities thought' a scandalpus overcharge had been made. ■'' • a Pocket handkerchiefs as at present used were first made m Paisley, Scotland* m 1743. It would be rude to discuss what they did previous to 1743; but it should not be out of place to repeat that thc . Scots are a saving people. In 1916 those Chinamen who retain the opium habit are to be banished. • Then, probably, the banished ones will come to New Zealand and set up m the industry. If they took a leaf out, of tbe "dry" district sly-groggers' book they should get along very well. They say that cardboard coins have been introduced into London schools to help the kiddies through their sums. "Critic" suggests a problem : -"If a herring and a half cost three half-pence, how many long beers could you buy with a cardboard half-crown ?" . • . .•• ,• The Auckland Harbor Board proposes to blast the rock on which the Kaipara struck. Quite right. "Critic" under-.-stands that the rock has been thoroughly damned by the shipping people and harbor officials, so that it is quite right and proper that it should be blasted. *' * * A Pio Pio Maori has become the possessor of a freak calf. The animal has four nostrils and three eyes, but is otherwise well formed and healthy. The owner must have beard of "Bainum," for he is earning an honest penny by charging two and sixpence to anyone wb.o [ desires to see the freak. And those who j would pay 2s Cd to see such a mishap '■ ' are still greater fieaks. • . • * At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Enel'sh ipne;uage was spoken by 'i ( 22 000.000 pconle, whereas now it is ' spoken by 100,000.000. This is on Ihn ; authority of a par rrom the newsy part of a daily journal; but "t'rilic" reckons ' thprc are' included m this total a lot of ' Foreigners, such as the people who asK \ you 'to "frivc a bloke a ch^n-st," the ! < neoph' who tell you they "never done it," tbe boys who yell out "c yar fyapples," ' and ladies who want to go "do'anc toane."

_ A Parisian taxi-cab driver hangs out a sign to the effect that he is prepared to speak Esperanto. It would be a good idea if he would advertise that he would make all his remarks to his machine m that non-committal language. a a a We are told that colored races never have blue eyes, their eyes always being dark brown, brownish, yellow, or black. "Critic" has found out that pugilists usually have black eyes, and if they haven't,;; aren't long m getting, them. * ' . * -.•■•'':»' • One of the newsy pars m, tbe daily, papers recently, told us that a high police official - m New York had been offered' £120,000 m. bribes fn one year to "look the other way" ; but the par stopped without saying how much he took— the most important- point. '.'.*'■-*•' • Last year a farmer m the Cathcart dis : trict, Australia, made J&1100. .clear ofl 3i_o acres. 'And yet Danes and Swedes are being' warned off ■. the country. TMS is strange, when it is rememuered that where a hard-working Britisher will maKe £1000 a Sca-ndy will make about £2500. An American has invented a wireless means" pf transmitting . electric light. ("Critic" is' working out the details of.a , 'wireless ' bar, whereby a man has only to .think of a drink and open his mouth 'and he* 11 find it pushed into him. : The sale of; the device will, naturally be .restricted to "dry" districts. '*■''*, *'■• It's consoling to hear that Queen Alexandra is an expert needlewoman, and that she taught her daughters to cut out and make their . own frocks. If Lloyd George matnages to abolish the House of Lords he will probably do King Mcd out of a job, when the children will be able tb keep the ' pot. boiling by making dresses for the wives and daughters of Welsh and Irish Ms.P. '"' .- ' • • ' "Critic" is a unionist through and through, and objects to a fellow m one business cutting m on. another business. We were told recently thae Kaiser Bill of Germany drew £212 10s on five shares iii a'brSwery^bbmpany; This '^sn't' Vf&f thing at all. Bill's got a good steady job at the award rate of wages as .Emperor of Gerta^ny, and being m the king business he ought to leave the brewery business severely alone. > « * * Here's a chance for mugs. The Wellington Young Men's Cadging Association will make anybody a "sustaining member" on payment of five lovely golden quidlets upwards. When tbe juggins has parted with his thick 'urn's he has the "privilege" cf nominating two regular memberships for each fiver. Very "sustaining" indeed ! By the way, nothing is needed to sustain the Wellington crawlers club's colossal cold brassy check. That stands alone, without any support. ,-o ...... ■. ■> The parish clerk of St. Columb, Cornwall, recently died m his 104 th year, after being clerk for 61 years. It is recorded that he, knew the .Psalms and the Prayer Book by. heart, and could repeat many portions of the Bible. 'Ihis accounts for the coke m the milky-nut,' so far as his. long tenure of office is con-, cerccd. Some people would engage a clerk who could repeat, the Lord's Prayer, although, he couldn't go further with the multiplication table than one times : one is one. '.- .._,,.•. ■• Extract from • a .Wellington V.M.C.A. report :— 'ln looking over the past year's work we harve to thank our. Heavenly Father for the rich and ■ many : blessings that have been bestowed upon us during the year." For once m a way, the combine of '.snuflle, cant, and cash has been frank— or is it ah accident ? All sane people .will ajgree .that -the girly^girly gentle -Annies should- thahk. somebody for ■the rich— the rich mugs, whose subscript tions enable the goody-goody noodles to play puss-fn-thE_-corner m palatial premises all the year round. ■■■•■•. r. ■* [A daily piper recently gloated over the fact that a farm m Taranaki had changed hands at £$5 per acre, but nothing was said about how much of this sum iwould be sweated out of the children of the buyer. It is said that of the children admitted to the schools m Boston, U.S.A i( 20 per cent, didn't know that cows gave milk. This is a case where ignorance is surely bliss ; and "Critic" doesn't reckon New Zealand children are liable to become famous merely because they know from personal experience that m a cow district a 12-year-old girl squeezes the teats of twenty cows between 4 and 6 a.m. on seven days a week. • * • Miss Braddoh, ancient writer of "yelltiw backs," has broken out m her old age as a contributed to the "Clarion," on such a vexed question as Socialism. According to a London cable-cram, the elderly sister of the author of the famous "Braddon blot" is reported aa having written*'.?— " With unmitigated terror it sets class against class, and tends to dry up the foundation of benevolence. 1 think we all loye to help the poor, but not with a loaded pistol at the people's foreheads." Now, for mixed metaphor, this is admirable. What a loaded pistol has to do with drying up a fountain, or what either has to do with Socialism, can best be explained by the authoress of ' 'The Trail of the Serpent." a a * The vicar of Retford (England) spat up a big dollop of sensible stuff recently when talking about the proposed revision of the prayer book. He was particularly hot on the suggestion for the elun'.mition or alteration of the introduction to thc marrlagd service, saying th.it he looked on the passage as a standing protest against the present tendency to call a spade anything else but a spade. He also said parsons would do. bettor to speak of things as tbey are th;'n to indulge m silly prudishness. This sounds good, md it would Le well if any notice wur_i tsti.cn of. tho words; but "Critic" fuels convinced that a modern parson to bu successful must indulge m silly piudish-tif.-ss, or g(>i tl'-e" c-jUick and sudden vack ii he t?J : s cf tilings as they arc.

i A'.Cb'igregaitidhal: parson has. just been ) elected to the House ; of Commons ' for I ipswich. He il lind himself m congenial I company, sure, ' '. j v; ■." •__■.,_«»■ •.»'.- NEWS IN BRIEF. Kitchener has come to town, ', And so has Bob the "pug." \ The Australians took Auckland down, \ While Bill Alassey's got a mug. ; ■«.■...«....■ We live m an age pi . hurry, but it's :. doubtful if a Ay oman wearing a Direc-' r .toire skirl : could a busi-ie oa ; and i "Critic" is,.; quite sure tbe correct Duec- [.., toire corset, will preclude any woman \.c-f- --[" ing one getting, a bend on to any extent. j Item of - startling news from a Martinborough correspondent, to a Masterton paper : "Two young men hunted a rabuit . oiit oi one of the culverts m the township this morning." Why, a decent-sized dogfight would lie a "scoop" to this , journal. '■'•■'■ .•' * * , ; A Jap explorer has unearthed some 'way back Buddhist scrolls, lf they conflict -with the. Buddhist theology which has been cvoljed by priestcraft during the last 2500 years, they must 'be spurious and schismatic' Buddhists are as particu- • lax as Christians— if hot more £0. '■ ' ■ " ''...':':,:;? '* •' Upon the arrival of the steamer Sydney ! at Bombay a Hindu was found to be m possession of a revolver, add . was prompt- i ly awarded two and a half years' im- . prisonment for importing arms without a license. The brightest jewel m England's '< crown is getting terribly tarnished of late. ■ \ ..,■■• •' .. ■• ".*;•; :'. • ;. • • ■ » . . . Same josser has discovered a prehistoric thigh-bone m German East Africa, measuring Cft 10in. Fr-aps it is the vcr- ; itable jaw-Lobe oi the historical ass. If, •■ so, it oaly shows that there is nothing new under the sun. There, are heaps of bones of that species knocking about now. . • : ' •* a The Maori chief Ranguiua sang at a society' concert at the Hotel Cur<io:i, and .at other concerts . given by swells m Lunrion. J Tiie TeFprt's State thfl t'tb'e" sii. gr : er made a great' reputation, but leaves it to the imagination to - guess what the reputation was for. Possibly it was for tangling the Cockneys up over his name. •■'.,• • "Critic" doesn't credit the statement that the Yids are flocking back to Palestine. In the : "Businesses for Sale" columns of the dailies last Saturday not a pawnbroking business or old clo' joint solicited a buyer ; the monish to lend advertisers were as numerous as ever, and not a solitary two to von bar von was missing from tlie races. • ■ ,-. ; . •<■ • Apropos ofithe harm done to Christianity among, the heathens by coKflicting Christian sectaries, a disciple of Islamism went to his chief and said he had a cock which, had proclaimed— " Christ Y religion is the only faith." He wanted to know' whether ' he would turn Christian or kill the cock as an infidel. "Keep' the' cock," said the chief, "arid it may tell us which pf Christ's religions is tbe true one. In the meantime we will . continue to be Moslem." * ••••■• * A Mohammed Inspector of Police m Calcutta named Shimivainlam was sbot by a Bengal ;youth' as he was leaving the court. The. 'assassin fled up the ; street, bat was captured— A bobby who lived m Calcutta Had a nani6 that _ made people stutter, •_' So a Hindu said "D—— a," '■■' . Shot Shkmyitiulam, 'And then up the.street did a flutter. An English borough bumble, when asking that V a young, man ,be appointed tramways manager, said that when a man is over forty lie's not much use to anybody. "Critic" , allows that when, a man's that age he can't give the municipal ltugs thirty shillings worth of work for every pound of wages ; but the. old fellow^ shouldn't' be shot off merely for that reason. A number of them should be ' kept. Otherwise the bottom would fall out of the comic opera and vaudeville businesses. . , .• , "•*■'• ■" It is ' often ; said that there are no great men living at present— that nobody , we see or read about is goins; to get his name into the history bco^s ; but, surely future generations will know of ( M. Prout, a Frenchman who lives at ] Montpclier, who has . earned a place among the world's heroes ...by writing 17,345 ( words on an .ordinary postcard: "Critic" feele sure that the most up-to-date histories will cut out their references to N. Bonaparte; for the purpose of making room for • • this truly illustrious , Froggy. . 0 a a a Liberty, Equality and Fraternity don't always work out according to. spiecifica- J tions. The Governor-General of Austra- , lia, which is run' under an old-fashioned king, gets £10,000 a year to pay his little account, with , the Chinese greengrocer and to buy tobacco ; but the Pre- I sident of the free, equal and fraternal republic of Andorra,' m ■ the Pyeeuecs, 1 which is about big enough to run a , small cow on, • and which supplies Lib- ' erty, Equality, and Fraternity, and a good snorting chance of sudden death to } its inhabitants, is given £ 3 as bis year's ' salary. . •'•,-■*•■ • ■ "If your wife objects to your going I out m the evening, you haven't trained i , her properly," said .01 E. Sailer at ibe;' annual meeting of tbe ChristchuiCU ' ; V.M.C.A. ."No- properly-trained wife offers i objections when liei; husband says he is . going to tbe V.M.C.A." € If late m your home coming t See that your wife is trained E To think you bave been chumming c With wowsers rabbit-brained. 1 At shivoo, hop, and smoke-o, • Where mugs of i.ecr are drained, * Get fuii up lo' the boi'o— t You know your wife is trained. , In accents coy and lender 1 She ;;.:eei- yo<: ; then >c>u say, £ "1 aivt. 'bin on ?. bander ; 1 H's V... T . .bio) 0.A." : f

1 The Belgian writer Maeterlink "drifted : into, literature." Some of the writers m I the . morning papers appear to have fallen .into, journalism ; and it is probably their struggles to extricate themselves that produce tbe extraordinary things . that dis^ figure "these sheets. ', ; >• -• ' • « ■ ai A remarkable case of assault was tried at Washington, U.S.A., when a bank president was lined for Lhrowi'hg a roll ot ; 500 twenty-dollar bank-notes at a custo-: ) mer,, with intent to do him" bodily harmi •, "Critic", wants to be assaulted that way. <■ Th 6; assault he bars is lo have good beef ■ thrown on him. That is a coriie— the " wilful waste. Virtue is said to be its own reward, but m Spanish and Portuguese schools a prize of ten guineas is given yearly to j the mest truthful boy and girl. This prize would pay a hoy for the immense trouble of being truthful (the gentler sex, of course, would all deserve tea guineas), but would hardly be suiucient to make a man neglect his business. M V « A usually well-informed country journal tells us— "All indica lions point to the 1 fact that less than ten miles below our ; feet a red heat is maintained permanently. miles above us we have pitiless cold, far below zero, of interplanetary space. To what narrow zone of dducately balanced temperature is life confined." Well, the hot blace isn't so far ofl. a 9 a ' That so many 'unfortunate girls die from blood poisoning following on a "certain event," is mainly due to the pernicious teachings of- wowsers, who imipress upon their congregations that infants, born without the blessing of the church, are m some mysterious, unexplained fashion, children of tha devil. The ancients highly esteemed- such infants, v whom they designated "Sons of the gods." •* * ' * Recenrly at tbe Selston (Notts) church, an old custom was revived, a number of 4lb loaves containing a com dicing distributed from a tombstuac ,to_ the poor of the district. The Lord lovefJi a cbfeexful giver : why. not have dealt, th? leaves out from the coffin ? Then "the " oMciatSfcuj ' parson could have improved the occasion by speculating on the possibility of the staff of life being cut into slats and used to make the last wooden waistcoat of death. * • • '- A Brussels resident paid -'au<j to secure a view of the carcase of the late Leopold being taken ' along to be planted. This shows how pleased he was to see the old fellow being gathered to his fathers. It's presumed Leopold asked before he died that he shouldn't be sent "where the good niggers go," because "Critic" reckons Leopold would be more comfortable hidden under one of the fire-bricks of- Hades: than pJayjhg a harp m a heaven full of Congo niggers. * • • There was one Chow m Dunedin who didn't want to be classed as anything but '. a British bulldog. After Kitchener had ; passed along Princes-street the piece of , Confucianism was to be . seen marching along tht. footpath with a small lump of . Yellow Peril on his left arm and the ■ othe.r arm stretched out to its full limit and clutching a portrait of . Britain's , bonsor biJfer, at which he looked very steadily, as jf he could never see enough of him. "Critic" confidently expects to ' hear, of the Celestial m question being , placed m command of a Dunedin volunteer, company at' an early date. •_* ' .* ' ■' '• ■■* About £.10,000,000 worth of fish is., landed annually . m the United Kingdom. ,.. This prdbably refers to fresh fish ..;■ but if; it. came to stinking fish, New Zealand i. ought to be able to take the record; ' jrtrnking. fish '■-. -of a face value of £10fr,O00.Q00, which, however, hsfs ho com- 1 merpial value, , being Vended evesy year m the viciuity =of Plimmer's steps. "Ufsfcic" reckons the place ought to be called the Billingsgate of the south, for the reason above stated And by reason of the other' cause which has made Billingsgate fam,ous. It's conceivable that the language . of a vendor of fresh fish would be quite tolerable wlien contrasted with that of a hawker of the hsh of yester-year, or* ' longer ago. » a a Dr. Louise Robiavitch (whoever she is) , claims to be able to bring the dead to life, basing her claim on the fact that her system of etectric excitations (what- , ever they are) brought a dead rabbit to life. Louise has apparently made an er- 1 ror m her calculations, evidently reckoning tbe public would exercise the brain „ power of rabbits when investigating her system. Louise electrocuted a rabbit, and ( then made it sit up again and take nourishment ; but "Critic" doesn't fed called upon, to believe that the system is worth •. remembering about until Louise can manage tp revivify a sixty-year-old j American multi-millionaire whom death downed with the double-Nelson grip of / senile decay and digestori'al depravity. . » . » * « Some people will cease to be petty and parochial when they fuially have the sods trampled down on them. There was trouble bout the Kitchener reception m Dunedin, and the people of that hospit- c able city are trying hard to Believe that t certain residents were not guilty of prig- t gish pettiness and parochiality in> 'allow- 1 ing the said awkward positions to arise ; i hut, according to the Dunedin "Star's" Auckland , correspondent, the Auckland people have decided to make a parade of c their parochial pettiness when Kitchener F arrives. Their particular trouble is tno s Knyvett case, and they threaten to "boo" b the Premier ?.nd Colonel Kobin when they I appear with Kitchener unless Cabinet c takes steps to -"allay the angry feeling existing." Now, whatever the merits of the Knyvett case, the Auckland people q shouldn't come to light m such an un- vii dignified .matsner as to growl about ' a ! " pimple when the fellow is being welcomed ! it who's lia';le to erAASc_.tc all ""the ulcers si m the defence system. Aucklcnders should ; h \:ok up some bcok on menhers, r.nrt i f { H they did "Truth" thinks they'd find the > a correct thing; to do was to hold their n whist while the country's guest was ■ti about, a.\.l aftvrwards lo stand on the. . d Prvrn'ei- :_;nl Ctl.nel Kobin with both : n fei-i-— if . l.Jicy can. ' \er