CHIPS.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 346, 25 July 1885, Page 22

CHIPS.

" Hew to the line — let the chips fall where they may." — Shakespebe. Bravo Salisbury ! Sir George Grey wants to make J.P.s elective. Far better that way than some o£ the useless appointees at present on the bench. If they won't work, what do they take the office for ? Bro. Morris has become 'an Imp.' Now, sound the loud timbrel ! Morris is only a little man. but I give him a big I, as he -wears high-heeled boots, a tall hat, and ' is ready to ' fight any man who gives him any imperance. His favourite vanity is the dew of Ben Nevis with sugar in. The Council got into a discussion last Thursday night on the question of having a trough put on the circular street mud-brush. Somebody had seen them at work in c Paree,' and wrote a letter suggesting it to get one. He, however, forgot to tell the Council that the trough brushes, owing to their having to empty their loads so frequently, lost a lot of time. If the mud-cart follows up the brush closely, it will be found as good a plan as any, and the quickest way at the finish. I may have been mistaken, but it has seemed to me in the jury cases at the late Supreme Court, that whenever the judge in his summing- up of a case seemed to lean on one side the jury as certainly brought in a verdict on the other. It may have been merely a curious coincidence, or there may have been method and intention in it. In any case it is a little remarkable, now, is it not? The Bell on Friday last published the following item : — ' Stanley, the American. African explorer, is a native of Wales, When he returned from his African tour in search of Livingstone his poor old Welsh mother went to London to welcome him and own the son she was proud of, and yet he had the hardihood to deny both his mother and nationality.' If Stanley really did that, he is too contemptible to touch. Bah ! Russia is the cause of the coming war — of that there is no doubt. But is it not shameful that in this boasted nineteenth century some half dozen men — who will not go to the front and fight themselves — snould. have it in their power to commit to the slaughter of war thousands of their fellow creatures ? It's "murder multiplied. If the war does come, I hope retribution will quickly follow, and ,that every one of the war-making schemers at St. Petersburg will at no distant date be thrown sky high by the Nihilists. The Saturday 'supplement' paragraphers never seem to be happy unless they can work into their pars a Latin quotation, a French phrase, or some other pedantic matter of that kidney. It seems to be done not to edify the people but to exhibit the writer's attainments. Who do they write for — university dons or the people ? The practice is very impertinent, and it serves no good purpose — it neither amuses, explains, nor educates. Ah! there is a lot of learned lumber knocking around Auckland. Sala's letters are like New Zealand railwaytrains — they do a good deal of blowing, but it takes them a tremendous long time to get anywhere. ' Across the Pacific ' reminded me of the old story of the man who travelled with his son from Helensville to Auckland on the railway. When the ticket collector saw the son he took a long look at the halfticket and then at the boy. ' You don't mean to tell me that youth is under the age, do you ? ' he said. ' Well, no, I don't sayhe is now, but he was when the train started,' replied the father. I'm not going to charge anything extra for this tip, but it's worth the price of a year's Observers, all the same. When you feel * under the weather,' instead of going to the doctor and paying half-a-crown or five shillings for a bottle of filtered water with something brown in it, take oatmeal and treacle for a day or two and yon'll feel fit to run for a cup. Don't say * Pshaw ! ' I tell you the thing is registered at Lloyd's as Al and if you will only try it you'll feel as happy as if you had joined the Salvation Army, or been newly copper bottomed. A well-known lawyer last Friday in the Supreme Court, in speaking of certain 'tricks' in bargaining, suggested they were common in perhaps every walk of life except the legal one. This is refreshingly cooir Of all the professions the legal one is perhaps the most ehock-f ull-running-oyer of any with tricks, in fact the whole system has degenerated into one to make big fees for lawyers and small purses for litigants. I hope to see a bill introduced some day to cut down lawyer's fees and simplify law. God knows both are needed. The accommodation for reporters in the Courts here is simply abominable. The miserable little shelves called desks are only fit to put lunch baskets on, some of them not that. Ordinary common sense would suggest tables. If reporters cannot be treated like white men they had better be excluded altogether. The latter game cannot be tried because the public would soon kick. The Press is as much a necessity to the age as are law courts. Counsel have tables and the judges proper desks, but the people's representatives are given uncomfortable hisd]backed pews. We are getting a little too much of ' paternal Government.'