M'DONALD AND O'FLANNERTY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2649, 21 December 1904, Page 87

M'DONALD AND O'FLANNERTY.

O Flannerty was Irish— you can tell that b> his name, — And M'Donald is a by-word in the land from whence he came ; They were neighbours down in Mercer, when the settlers were but few; The first had just turned sixty-one, while Mac was sixty-two. They were often seen a-chathng by the reedy river beds, And the farm-folk eulogised them as the very best of friends. In height and face and colour they were very much allied; Their farms alike were just as long, their paddocks just as wide. 'Twas a saying in the township : if you chanced to meet the one, You'd be sure to meet the other ere a quartermile was done. The statement may be misapplied, but there is little doubt O'Flannerty was seldom there when Mac waa not about. Their sheep were just as woolly; their lespective cows were ten, And crowning all, these comrades were the jolliest of men. They smoked the same tobacco-leaf— the be«t they could) afford, — Until one fatal night occurred the things I here record. 'Twas friend M'Donald walked across before the day was dead Unto his neighbour's farmyard where the pigs were being fed. But they left the sly-gate open, and it chanced Mac didn't see : Neither did it catch the optics of his mate O'Flannerty. Then they smoked a while in silence — I forgot to say before They both had led a bach'lor life, and longed for nothing more. Slow the shadows crept around them, and they strolled about till late, And passed a few remarks awhile at Jock M'Donaid's gate.

Now it happened that these old men, by some strange coincidence. "When they parted for the ev'ning at the high dividing fence Should not notice that the wicket gate was left upon the latchThat night his neighbour's pigs ransacked M'Donaid's carrot patch.

There is a tale the gossips tell in sleepy Mercer town, But here, for want of space and time. I cannoi set it down ; Suffice that by the river bends no more the people see 'M'Donald a-conversing with his friend O'Flannerty.

— E. L. Eyas.

Auckland, December, 1904,

— The vagaries of cricbat balls have been, the subject of endless paragraphs, but not many balls have succeeded in shutting down a cotton mill. An amateur game, of cricket was the means of stopping the big mills of the Slater Cotton Company, at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and throwing sevearl hundred hands into idleness for the remainder o f the day. The power is transmitted between the two mills by means of a large rope cable, and a ball was thrown upon the cable and drawn into the pulley. This caused some of the strands of the cable to pait, shutting off the power.

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