BRIEF MENTION

Observer, Volume IV, Issue 92, 17 June 1882, Page 220

BRIEF MENTION

An article on the recent proceedings in the Board of Education, is held over. We regret to jhear that Mr V. E. Bice is seriously ill. The use of choral in England is frightfully coinnaon. ■ ■ Some anonymous idiot hoaxed the Herald the other day with, a false marriage announcement. Tommy Rankin was not the telegraph operator referred to anent the gushing damsel at Tararu. Eai'ly to hed and early to rise ; Never get tight — and advertise ! " Abbot's new Opera House " is what the Melbourne Bulletin calls it. Such is fame ! The elite of Devonport visited the Opera House on Friday evening to see the " Pirates of Penzance." . The Psirnell choir (Sfc. Mary's) has greatly improved under the direction of the choirmaster and curate. Tom Morrow has built an eigh teen-feet salmon rod, coppered and epper fastened— a regular bleeder. Ask him to show it you. " Ireland, bo.* s, hurrah !" Call at the Waverley and see Or.T.P. He has positively got a ham on the premises. "What about the liaybag> George ? No little jobs in the Waste Lands Board ? The President of tlie Chamber of Commerce all wrong, eh ? Well, hardly ever ! The young ladies of Devonport are highly indignant that anyone should think that a face like the " North Shore Lady- killer's" would captivate them. Is it true that the members of the Devonport Social Improvement Club play eiichre for cignrs and coffee? How the opcra-glassos did go up when the tableau of Brittannia was disclosed at the end of the " Pirates." The H.M.S Nelson is shortly expected in Auckland. We hope the young ladies will put on a more cheerful appearance than they have at present. After Green's speech in the House, Didsbury had to go round the newspaper offices to borrow capital Is. An English paper says that Foster's administration of the Coercion Act will be like " firing pillows froni an 81 ton gun." The death of Professor Green from bloodpoisoning has been traced to milk supplied from a cow which was tainted with disease. • " Kua mate koe pakeha," the words used by orte of the natives who fired at Williams, do not mean " You die, pakeha,," but " You are a dead man pakeha.'' What is all this talk in Parliament about diamond drills ? Are there not already enough " bores" in the House ? There wove big times at the Vie on Monday night. Ball given to the Opera chorus girls. All the young bucks were there. The Bible classes of St. James' Sunday-school have issued invitations for a " social" ■ to take place rather more than a week heuce. There are wild rumours in circulation touching a certain knight of the brush having somewhat precipitately married his fiancee for " a solid reason." Herr Schmitt is said to be greatly exasperated at some of the press critiques on the performance of the oratorio of "Eli," and but for prudential considerations would have smitten the critics hip and thigh. Mr Lennox deserves much praise for the excellent arrangements made at Wayte's, Queen-street, for the convenience of the patrons of the Opera during the Opera season. The Thames Star caused a sensation by pub--1 ishing the details of the Hazlitt-Hamilton rape case, but t here was a great run on the paper. The churchwardens and elders got the earliest copies, just damp from the machine. G-eneral satisfaction is expressed at the Thames at the re-appointment of Dr Payne as surgeon at the Hospital. A rose by any other nama. Would .yield its perfume just the same. And Doctor Payne, 'tis strange to say, From, patients drives the pain away, And inakeg with lotion find with \iiiL A pa£y)nacea for every ill. Who is the stupendous idiot who is responsible for cutting up Syinonds-street in the wettest season of ' the year? The narrow space left on each side of the ' ditch is, in some places, a perfect bog. A number of dashing young pi'ofessional men have frequented the Victoria a good deal lately. Of course, the love-sick maidens were not the attraction. Oh dear no ! The Whitehall Review calls Sir William Harcourt " the professional bully of the Cabinet." And yet they nccuso Colonial newspapers of using strong language! , 'He (poetically) : " Why should I fear to sip the sweets of each red lip P" She (practically) : "No ■ necessity for alarm at all ! I use vegetable colour, which - is not poisonous." When Cornelius Vanderbilt went 300,000 dols. to the bad — through poker, no doubt — his brother gave him.7,000,000 dols., to keep him going. But after this Cornelius shot himself. Some men are never satisfied. A member of a fashionable congregation called' at a music store and inquired for " The Song of Solomon," adding, " Our pastor referred to it yesterday as an exquisite gem, and my wife would like to learn to play it." A certain landlady of a fashionable boardinghouse not a thousand miles from Symonds-street informed a gentleman residing in her houae, who expressed a wish to change his quarters, that she did not allow her boarders to leave. Of course there is not a word of truth in the report that the Ohinemntu lands were locked up so as to prevent a glut of land in the market while the Patetere Coinpauy were realising their spec in London ! Oh, dear no. - The Auckland Club has been fitted with, a new front. Some of the members have quite " front" enough as it is. The strangers' room is spacious, and tastefully furnished, and the whole of the internal arrangements have been much improved. We print in another part of this issue the first part of. a, story by. -Mr Walter Dignan, entitled "A chip of granite, or .the Talisman." As the plot abounds in love making, tender' speeches, and kisses, it ought to be read with interest by the ladies, with whom Mr Dignan is so great a favourite: The 2vort;h Shore takes another step forward. The Auckland Gas Company have just purchased a piece of land near the bridge on the Lake-road for the erection of gas, works, in order to supply the residents of Devonport with gasi A contemporary states that one cause of the defaotive working of the telegraph lines running along the coast is.'that " salt air acts as a conductor, and induces leakage." This piece of saline information must have, "leaked" out of the Telegraph Department, ■but it is probably " fresh" to the general public. . A curious case, came, up in the Police Court last week in which a girl named Spain was charged with desertiilg her child, but the' chargewas withdrawn ac it turned out , she 'had . not really done so. The alleged putative father of .Spain's child is, said to be a " don" at •■- the Thames, bvitjhe emphatically repudiated tho idea of . Clink's baby being engineered on to his doorstep.

The fashion of turning the Birth, -Marriage, and Death notices— the "Hatched, matched, and Despatched," into biographies is increasing. A happy ; benedict at Palmerston takes the opportunity to lnchide in the announcement of his marriage the fact that His father was the author of " The Crescent and the Cross, one of the silliest productions of the present century. The receipts of the Williamson Opera Company last week were within £45 of their takings in Christchurch daring the first week, of the Exhibition, when the town was crowded with visitors from all parts of New Zealand and the neighbouring colonies. IHe Williamsons say that Auckland audiences are the most musical and best dressed in the Colony ? It was cruel not to send us an invite to the Shakesperian mwddlciy! Fancy listening to Ewington reading some of the tit-bits in the sonnets ! No wonder " The gentle lark" figured in the programme. But why did one of the singers protest in remarking ' Iknow a bank?" If tho church has not a big overdraft there already, why seek to raise funds in this way ? The other night some thieves robbed Mr Neil Heath's dove-cot. Oh ! 'twas a very barbarous deed, To eteal those barbs so choice of breed !. It made the owner fume and pout To find his pouters taken out, And threats of vengeance dire he muttered To iind his dove-cots had been fluttered, They'd carried olf his carriers too, And boiled them for an Irish stew. jj ,B. — The above poem is almost worthy of Sinclair. Five indignant memorialists at Kihikihi, including a blacksmith, a tailor, and a carpenter, have sent in a hot protest against our Waikato correspondent's " Whispers" about the manner in which the port of " Blowhard" was snstaiued in a performance given by the Waipa Dramatic Club. According to these connoisseurs of dramatic art " Blowhard" seems to be an artist of the first rank, and a " star" of the first magnitude. One argument which has been adduced in favour of an alternative line of telegraph, owintr to the damaging interruptions of the past week, althongh it is not likely to iniluence Major Atkinson, is that it would raiße the moral tone of the newspaper offices and the Telegraph Depnrtuipnt, by arresting those occasional gusts of profanity which sweep on both when the significant words " wires in contact," "lines down," indicate some of the ills to which pressmen and telegraphists are heir. TT^