A SUBURB AN SURPRISE PARTY.

Observer, Volume XI, Issue 707, 16 July 1892, Page 4

A SUBURB AN SURPRISE PARTY.

They carried food to their dear friends house, And scattered the floor with crumbs, And marked the leaves of the well-bound books Wilh the prints of their greasy thumbs. They piled the dishes high and thick With a lot of unhealthy cake, While they gobbled the buttered toast and rolls Which their dear friend's -wife did make. They hung- around a fair one's neck Their apple-parings for sport, And everyone laughed when a clumsy lout Spilled his tea on the pianoforte. Next day their friends went down on their , knees — Be it known 'twas not to pray ; Oh, no! 'twas to scrape the grease and dirt From the carpet and chairs away. "We have received the following characteristic protest, supposed to be in verse, from the Costiey Home, concerning a tobacco grievance under which the old men labour. We publish this complaint, and hope the trouble will end, as all tobacco troubles should, in smoke. It is addressed to the Editor, and is as follows : I realy think that i'll go mad, mad as any hatter, Since the A.C.B. has seen it tit to stop our Tobaco. I oftimes wish I had a smoke, and not know what to do ; In days of yore they gave us four sticks, and now they give us two— Yes, two small sticks of backa a month, now, I now very much do doubt If the old men could have been more cut up if they had to have gone with,out. Who ere it was that got it stop'd ? I say he is a fair man. Some they say it was,lJr Mays ; 'others say the Chairman ; So when next then killing at the Horns, and I happen to be there man, VII try and get the Butcher to make bacon of the Chairman. If that won't do, it's then Vll get the gardener and his batman to dig A nice soft bed, and plant in it Mr ~ what's his name? you know— the fat man. — I retrain, etc., . An Inmate.

Many an editor thinks put a brilliant editorial while beating the carpet in his backyard. The married man who interrupts while his wife is giving him a curtain lecture only delays the time of his going to sleep. ' "What did her father say when you asked him for his daughter's hand ?' 'He was put out.' « What followed then ?' 1 1 was put out too.' 'I've had a . good deal of trouble,' said the milkman, confidentially. ' Yes,' replied the cook, ' I've noticed that even your milk has the blues.' The story goes that the Premier will recommend the members of the Ponsonby •At Home ' to Her Majesty for knighthood. It is a pity such a lot of arrogance should be lost 'to the legitimate aristocracy. Members of Parliament seem to be a bad lot, if we judge from some circumstances. Some of their names were placed upon the books of the new Club at Wellington— the Junior Clvb — whose members consist mostly of commercial travellers and civil servants. After the names of the Members of Parliament were put down on the books, one of the memBers of the club set down a motion in the books for the next meeting, ' That all Members of Parliament be excluded from the club. ' He is rough on the M.H.Es., is this young club member, who objects to the society of M.H.Rs. The burning question of the hour in Auckland last week was, how long that abnormal candle of Dalton's would burn? There were free duds and cheap pants attached to it, and the people guessed like firebells. Fifteen thousand odd had a shot at the problem, some guessing years, others months, and others again weeks. For two morcal days and nights, people stood with their noses glued to Dalton's windows, watching that flickering flame, and for once th 6 attractions of his extra pants were unrecognised. The candle was not a decorous one, for it infringed on the Sabbath, expiring in the wee sma' hours after the fashion of human folk. Thirtynine hours some odd minutes and seconds was the time, and one guesser got very close to it. That suit of clothes and the extra pants are now perambulating advertisements for Dalton in Queen street. And, by-the-way, it is hard to rub Dalton out for advertising novelties. This one •• has made him famous- through the Colony. Tuesday was the 'immortal twelfth,' and Tim Doolan celebrated the day by calling upon us, armed with a venerable blunderbuss, whose mouth piece was as wide as the crater of Mount Eden. Tim, with ' murdther ' in bis eye, was in search of Orangemen, but the sight of that blunderbuss turned our whole establishment green in a twinkling. The peacefully disposed editor of a monthly journal was paying us a visit at the time, but he fled incontinently, lim Doolan was not satisfied by our production of the office boy, whose hat, was decorated with green ribbons. He was intent upon the slaughter of an Orangeman, and in spite of our entreaties, • escorted his blunderbuss upstairs. There, however, he found, only a staff of printers with green complections, and a bevy of pretty girls, whose hair was adorned with ribbons of the everlasting green. 1 Tim murdered an imaginary Orangeman to show them what he was capable of, if any. Farrells or Goldies had been concealed upon the premises, and then came down to us again, and in the sacred seclusion of the editorial sanctum shed floods of repentance over the imaginary death of the imaginary Orangeman, rivers of tears with us over the imaginary widow in her distress, and oceans of tears over the poor fatherless kiddies, whom he had deprived of the protection of a good man, whose one unpardonable fault was that he was an Orangeman. And such was Tim Doolan on the ' immortal twelfth.'

5 The event of the season is the annual social to be held in St. George's Hall, Newton, on Friday, sth August, in aid of St. Patrick's Presbytery Building Fund. The following is a list of the ladies' committee who have charge of the catering, &c. :— Mesdames Dignan, Mahoney, Hiscocks, Nolan, Leonardo (treasurer); Misses Gough, Callaghan, Ryan, Regan, fcfarkias, Hobbs, McCarthy, Martin, Knight, Cxtrigan, Donovan and Gleeson.