BRIEF MENTION

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 349, 15 August 1885, Page 11

BRIEF MENTION

He was just lighting his cigar, before darting- for the Queen-street tram. 'Do you like wax matches ? ' he asked. ' No, I prefer live ones,' she answered. No cards. A weekly newspaper is about to make its appearance at Onehunga, according to the Wairoa Gazette, This will give the local councillors a show of seeing themselves in print. They say that a fish diet gives brain power, and it also turns out that rather than have a full market, Auckland's fishermen turn tons of fish overboard when they make a big catch. This explains a great many problems, amoDgst others the Council muddle. The Sy d n ey Daily Telegraph asks i n large head lines — ' What are we drinking ?' While deploring this turning of the electric light of publicity upon a transaction between gentlemen, the same old thing will do, with a little less water and rather more — ha ! nutmeg. ' A retired ladies' man,' writing from Devonport, is kind enough to volunteer a little advice on the subject of love-making, which will probably come in handy for some of our readers. Here it is :— ' When you pop the question do it with a kind of laugh, as if you were joking. If she accepts you, very well ; if she does not, you can easily say you were only in fun.'

The only Hannaforcl's petition to Parlia--1 ment praying for recognition of his service to the State in inducing' over one hundred happy couples to tie the knot connubial, has been shelved, the Petitions Committee not being satisfied, it is said, about the possible proportion of unhappy couples brought together by T. B. H.s agency. It is a thankless world. ! ' The special reporter ' of the Puuedin Star thinks the carriages form the best feature of the Wellington Exhibition, and adds that < Messrs Cousins and Atkins exhibit is good enough to defy competition. Indeed yesterday I heard Mr Howland, head of the firm of Chriatclmrch builders (and he is himself a large exhibitor), say that there is nothing like it in the colony.' An attendance-table for the past year just issued by the City Council shows that Cr. Crowther has been the most regular ' sitter ' at the Council's weekly meetings. He heads the list with 52, beating His Worship the Mayor by three points. Cr Garret is at the bottom of the list with 48. Taking it altogether this is good work. We should not care about sitting out even 43 meetings of the Council. The course of true love is proverbial for its crooked running. The latest instance to come under our notice is sacl indeed. A youngcouple residing at the Thames had agreed to get married, and the youth came to Auckland to get his father's consent. He had taken a cottage, furnished it, and procured every requisite for commencing housekeeping down to

a ton of ' cord wood.' Then he wrote his love — ' Dear little canary, the cage is ready — when will the little bird come ?' -The ' little bird ' would have flown into the ' cage ' on i the wings^ of love if she had had her own way, but just as she was pluming her wings for flight his papa interfered and would not consent to the match, and consequently it had to be deferred for a twelvemonth. On hearing this her father became very 'savage.' Better luck next time ! ' Although on pleasure he was bent he had a frugal mind.' These familiar words are recalled vividly to the recollection on reading our Wellington correspondent's ' Gossip ' in another column, wherein it is stated that of the 16,000 persons who have visited the Exhibition to date, the majority have patronised the show on the ' never ' jn-inciple. - Sala still keeps up the same old grind about what he eats and what he drinks and who he sees. What fearful stuff it is to be sure I If any unknown writer were to send such copy to any ordinary office, it would be put in its proper receptacle— the waste-paper basket; but because it is written by G. A. S. (and gas desciibes it fitly), it is 'quite a prominent piece and leaded. Oh, give us a rest George Augustus, and the particulars for your obituary notice. The latest story is that one of our Cabinet Ministers at Wellington deliberately put into circulation a false story to ' hoax' the' Press. He was in a big business sure, there was no credit in doing such a thing : the item was of no great moment, anyway. The only mistake the Press made was to give credence to a statement coming from him. When a man makes a statement wilfully, and knowing it to be untrue, what is the real AngloSaxon name for such a man ? On Friday evening the Publicans of Napier gave a ball— an exceedingly hightoned affair — so high-toned in fact that the local barmaids were excluded from it, much to the indignation of those young ladies who feel that an unmerited slur has been cast upon them. These aristocratic publicans i will never hear the last of that ball ; and in fact they are the laughing stock of the town. | Thackeray would have found plenty of j materials in New Zealand had he visited us for additions to his famous 'Book of Snobs.' The snobbery in Auckland is something overwhelming. Mr Rees thinks the Maoris are the lost ten tribes, but we think Aucklanders prove their descent from the children of Israel most plainly in their tendency to < worship golden calves. If things go on much longer in the same line, the time will come I when one man who has a shilling won't rei cognise the man who has ninepence. What a fool Bobby Burns must have been when he wrote that 'the rank is but the guinea stanrp, a man's a man for a' that.' A Dunedm paper says that a huge mistake was made in holding the Wellington Exhibition in the smallest oi the great centres of population in the Colony. Besides that drawback, Wellington has very sparse populated surroundings from which exhibitors might come. Wellingtonians of a calculating turn lof mind fondly imagine that fully 10,000 I persons from other parts of the Colony will pay their town a visit during the time the show is open ; and that the total admissions will exceed 150,000. It should be Auckland's turn next. Mr Voice-Hawkins who has contributed a number of pleasantly written articles to this journal, was a passanger per Waihorn last week for Dunedin. Mr Hawkins has gone to the Southern Capital to fill a mercantile appointment. He has our best wishes for his success, and we are pleased to find that he has not yet forgotten us ; by the last southern mail we received a communication from him dated JSTapier, and which we publish in another column under the heading. ' Down South by the East Coast.' Mr Hawkins promises to send us further records of his adventures, from time to time. The young partj' who lias been sellingbogus cement around the suburbs recently, and whose name has been figuring rather prominently in the papers in consequence, is of modest and unassuming habits. Doubtless embarassed by |the publicity his doings had excited, he bid his landlady (residing in Victoria-street) a silent farewell the other night, first lowering his box from his bedroom window. His unexpected departure was discovered on the morning following his flight. It would take a good deal of genuine cement to mend all the promises which this ingenuous youth has made to his too confiding customers and hostess. A correspondent writes us : — " Our Kailway Guards beat creation for good temper, civility, and smartness. I remember being in a third class carriage on the Midland and was highly amused some, twenty, years since by the guard ca]ling out for ' tickets.' To the first class rjassengers it was | ' r Teekets, please, ladies and gentleman ;' to the occupants of the second class, ' Tilcets ' please, and to the third class (in a voice of thunder) ' Tick-uts !' But we are in a country now', where, I suppose, all men are equa'.£ and so many will bear me out and say, our guards are always smart, civil, and it is always 'Tickets, pl ea^^^^p^ '

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