The Observer.

Observer, Volume 6, Issue 154, 25 August 1883, Page 2

The Observer.

Satubday, August 25th, 1883. A LEVANTING BONIFACE. Great commotion was occasioned in New Plymouth the other evening, when it was discovered that a certain publican was non est — that he had mysteriously flown over night, leavinghis creditors lamenting. A close examination into- ' affairs revealed the fact that the levanter had. sold all the furniture in the hotel the day before,., and had been assiduously saving up all the takings of the house for weeks previously, in order to takehis departure from New Plymouth like a. gentleman. A rush was at once made by the creditors to secure whatever they could, but alas ! therewas absolutely nothing left. The stock had beei* brought so low, for want of replenishing, that the night before the Boniface's disappearance there were only one or two full bottles in the place — the array of bottles on the shelves being filled with water. It was found that, in order not toleave his creditors anything, he had invi^d some' particular friends in and polished off every drop of" liquor in the house, not even leaving a glass of' wine for his lamenting creditors to console - themselves with. It was intensely amusing to see one or two of the creditors taking stock after the affair had got wind. Bottle after bottle on the shelves was sampled, but the only result was water. The house vras, of course, closed'by the police, and the creditors are avowing vengeance on the defaulter. ♦ # THE RULE OF THE FOOTPATH. __ "Keep to the right" is the rule of th 6 aidftif walk, and if everyone observed it there wouldbdft no squeezing and jamming in Queen-street, sffiT swearing would be nearly abolished. It is a Jaw so Btrictly enforced in London that a girl wsv- -^ fined five shillings lately for walking on the left.

... SALVATION ARMT ASTRONOMERS. He was a sergeant in the Salvation Army, and should know something about things celestial, so when she overtook him on her way home from evening class, she quietly threaded her arm r through the eye of his elbow, and asked in tones of melting tenderness whether the sun's parallax made any really appreciable difference in our iplanet's mean time. Halting suddenly, he told her, in an expiration of freezing mixture, that he .didn't care whether the son's pair o' legs made a j •difference of two days and a half one way or »othjsr. Then she let go of him with a jerk, and \ "would have thrown him over for the fellow that prattled prettily about the epicurean proclivities -of the plesiosaurus in the post-pliocene period, if ehe had not seen a man coming along with a \ basket on his arm crying " Hot pies." He set'eni up for two, and squared it. The pre-historie man ( siever stood, pies. — ♦