HERE AND THERE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5022, 1 June 1889, Page 2

HERE AND THERE.

“ This, gentlemen, is a case about waterraces,” said Mr Joynt to the jury yesterday, “ but I am afraid you will find it an exceedingly dry one.” It is fortunate for the jury that Mr Joynt is engaged in the case, as be is as well able as any gentleman of the bar to put some spirit into it.

That was a queer clause to find in a contract for water-race construction—“painting and papering.” The engineers must have mixed an office job with an office work.

A country settler Wellington way was shifting a tall load of some description when it fouled a telegraph wire and broke it. Like a sensible son of the soil be posted off to the nearest office and reported a break in the line at EO-and-so.The official thanked him profusely and immediately took steps to repair the damage, wondering, at the same time, how it happened. He didn’t wonder long, for presently along came another party with the news that old so-and-so and his cart had knocked the wire down. This changed the official’s gratitude to gall, and his next proceeding after repairing the damage was to hunt up old so-and-so, take back his thanks and demand payment for the damage done.

Sheep-farming in the tropics is a dismal failure. In the hot Pacific Islands sheep decrease in size, the wool becomes coarser in texture, and at Tahiti the acclimatised anima's look like small goats with saddles on their backs. For years, says a veracious visitor, it was the hobby of an esteemed English resident at Tahiti to breed sheep, and at occasional intervals he imported fresh stock from Auckland—a few animals at a time. At last he came to the conclusion that Nature was invincible, and that in the effort to keep up the standard of quality the “ odds were agin him.” The agent of the steamer delicately euggested that the time had surely arrived for another small order* “ No, thank you,” replied the amateur breeder, “ the game’s not worth the candle. Why, the darned things change completely in a single generation. The imported parents, in course, have no tails, but darn my eyes if the youngsters don’t all sport tails as long as themselves. Ob, you needn’t laugh as if I were a-hoaxing you ; just come up to my place and you’ll find its Gospel truth.”

The following is the original of the geological hoax cabled over from Sydney. It started as a telegram from Orange, in the Sydney Daily Telegraph : “ A phenomenal discovery has been made at a marble quarry four miles from the Mullion Creek railway station and ton miles from Orange, which gives plainest possible proofs that the body of a man has been petrified into a solid block of marble. The block was found by Mr B. Sola, who owns and works the quarry, and is now in the possession of Dr Souther.of Orange, who is making an examination (with a view to arrive at some rational conclusion. The figure is the exact form of a human being, stands 6ft 9in in height, and weighs between scwt and 6cwt. The head is perfect with the exception that it shows unmistakeable signs of having been scalped previous to burial. The trunk is intact, the ribs and muscles being plainly visible. The two arms are missing, as also are two toes on one foot and one on the other; bub the remainder of the toes with the toenails, show as plainly as possible. The discovery is exciting the greatest curiosity. It is reported that a female form has been found in the same quarry."

“ Farmer Crowder had finished planting his corn, but his heart was heavy. He knew the crows were whetting their bills to pull up the corn as soon as it appeared above the surface, ‘ I tell you how to get away with the crows,’ said neighbour Stokes. * How ? * Get you a gallon of mean whiskey and soak some com in it till it gets full of the stuff, and then scatter it broadcast in the field. The black rascals will eat it and get drunk, and then you can catch ’em and pull their heads off. That beats pizen or shootin’.’ In a few days Farmer Crowder met his friend Stokes. ‘Well how’s craps ? ’ queried Stokes. ‘My corn’s bodaciously mint,’ replied Crowder, dolefully. ‘ I tried that ’ere scheme o’ your’n and it’s a humbug. I soaked the corn and scattered it one day, and next mornin’ I went down to the new groun’ to see how it worked.’ ‘ Found ’em drunk eh ?’ ‘ Found nothin.’ I hearn a devil of a fuss down nigh the creek, and went to see what it was ; thar was a confounded old crow what had gathered up all the whiskey corn an’ had it on a stump, an’ he was retailin, it out to others, givin’ em one grain o’ that sort fur three grains o’ my planted corn ; and dinged ef they hadn’t been and clawed up that hull field by sections.