THE FRETFUL PORCUPINE.

Observer, Volume XI, Issue 754, 10 June 1893, Page 9

THE FRETFUL PORCUPINE.

A Quill for Everyone.

Beresford-street Mutual Imps have been improving themselves by dedebating 'Is the influence of the pen greater than that of the tongue V The ' noes, 1 or rather the ' tongues,' had it. Of course they were all married men.

'Tis an ill-wind, etc. An Auckland medico last week sent in a little bill to the Municipal authorities for £30 — made up of half-crown ' information fees.' When a doctor reports a case of infectious disease he gets half-a-orown from the City. This £30 represented half-crowns for reporting cases of measles !

The women of Napier are up in arms and screaming for their rights ! They have just sent in a petition, praying for the franchise, fourteen and a-half yards long ! The petition states that the members of the League do not desire any electoral privileges that are not extended to men. This is really very considerate of them.

' F.H.,' whoever that individual may be, is evidently a firm believer in spiritualism. He inserted the following-, amongst the ' Wanteds ' in Fridays Star :

— 'Will the late Mrs Bass please oom> mumcate by letter and leave address with F.H., Star office. Important.' It would require to be something important that would tempt the late Mrs B. or anyone else back from the enjoyment of eternal bliss.

'While he was examining a receipt the horse was let out of the stable.' Such was the ' tale of woe ' unfolded by Adam Menzies, assistant bailiff, at the B.M. Court the other morning. Adam went to seize the horse for debt, but the debtor's wife was too smart for him, and while she held the representative of the law in conversation the gee-gee vanished. Which seemß to suggest that there is something sharper than even a bailiff's eye, and that is a woman's wit.

A Sydney barrister was crossexamining a witness in a theatrical case the other day. 'And don't you think,' said the man of law, addressing the witness, a member of a minstrel company, ' that your calling is rather a disreputable one ?' ' Sometimes I have thought so,' replied the witness ' but it is a more reputable calling than my father's.' • And pray what was your father's calling?' 'He was a barrister.' The Court roared and the witness was told to ' stand down.

They were reminiscing concerning the old days when the prison in Auckland stood behind the spot where the City Hall now is. ' Well,' remarked one, ' you know old So-and-so, who occupies such a good position in Auckland now. Well, he was a prisoner in those days. You remember that a great sewer ran from the gaol towards the wharf parallel with Queen-street. Well, occasionally So-and-so would be missed. He had made tracks down the drain and would be seen now and then having a drink at the bar of a certain hotel in Queen-street. But he always returned to prison again by way of the sewer.' Ttaoße were the days when it was often a disadvantage to be out of gaol.

Can it be possible? Well, -we are assured it happened, anyway. A well-to-do Aueklander (we tell the tile as 'twas told to as) was driven the other afternoon to a oitj hotel. Drank before he resetted the house he became drunker still boos alter he reached it K In this condition he was induced to put his signature to a deed (properly prepared and drawn up) by which he made over certain property of his to another man for about one-half its value. And (only what we're been told, you know !) the purchaser, like the cautious man that he is, immediately re-sold the property at £25 advance on the price he had agreed to pay. Wonder if the detectives knew anything about this little bit of business — always supposing it to have happened. And we are told it did happen.

The Ashburton journal says the Auckland Herald is a paper run in the interests of no party, tied to the chariot wheels of no olique. Funny dog, that Ashburton man.

Exchanges of compliments are not unknown among our City Fathers. But the compliments are much more pointed in Dunedm Council— perhaps it is the climate ? At a recent sitting of the South Dunedin Council a councillor referred to the Mayor as ' a pig-headed numbskull.'

Foxton has developed a ' scandal in high life,' which is giving all the ladies in the place something to chat about over the back fence. We haven't heard particulars, but are told that it is something ' quite too naughty.' And Bensational developments are expeoted.

Gladstone, it is cabled, refuses to ask Parliament for a |grant for the Dake of York and Princess May. ' Significant ? And Her Gracious, in high dudgeon, refuses to create earls, and knights and so on, to please Mr Gladstone. Poor. Percival. After all that Imperial Institute tommy-rot, too.

DRAMATIC ENTBANCE OF THE OLD MAN. They sit together, side by side,

' Around her waist his strong arms lock, He calls her his own bonny bride,

Their lips unite - electric shook : v The parlour door flies open widel

'Young man, it's half-past 12 o'clock.'

A Queen-street tobacconist of a sporting turn of mind has recently been exhibiting a sackful of bank-notes in his window. The thusness of the which is explained by the fact that the exhibition of all this filthy lucre was challenged to show that he possessed the ' Oof ' he professed to have. ' Seeing is believing 'be said, and stacked the money where every passer-by could have ocular demonstration of the faot. His window haa been surrounded ever sinoe by a crowd of tag, rag and bobtail whose mouths water as they gaze at that hillock of crumpled notes.

With reference to tlie paragraph in last week's issue touching the recent exam, for pharmaceutical chemists in Auckland, we are assured that we were misinformed with regard to the two assistants of a local chemist passing ' with flying colours.' It seems that not only did they not pass with flying colours, but they did not pass at all. We are also informed that their employer had very little to do with the examination. At the same time, the principle holds good that chemists whose assistants present themselves for examination should have absolutely nothing whatever to do with the examination of their own employees.

When Hugh. Hedley went out the other morning to see what he could ' pot ' with his little catapult —an ingenious toy of satanic origin — he never supposed that he would pot Mr J. Eenwick's pot-hat. Mr Eenwick's head happened to be in the hat at the moment, i and if the stone had gone just a shade flower there would probably have been a ; funeral later on. Hugh was asked to pay a pound and costs, and if he had been ordered a sound birching as well and got the gravity of his offence impressed upon his back as well as upon his mind, it would have been well, and something for other little hoys with catapults to ponder over.

Some editors' lines are east in pleasant places if we are to take the following as the naked truth. It is the verbatim outpourings of an irate subscriber of a paper in a farming district. ' When you first took charge I mast say it (the paper) was worth reading but you have drifted into nothing but football and cricket and concerts and such like rubbish and I can really assure you Mr Editor that four out of every five of your readers would not ba bothered reading it. lam afraid you are .going down the hill rapidly, like your 'friend Mao, spending your time ia somebody's parlour bugging some lump oi a girl instead of being in you? office trying to bring oat a paper fit to be read. The 25th is a disgrace. Hoping yob will mend your :w»ys, and improve your paper for heaven's sake, or old (the rival editor) will have his o*n way very soon. lam yours, etc., — A Lover of News not Rubbish.' The idea that any part of an editor's duties is to hug the daughters of his subscribers is a new and dangerous one and if it became generally known would lead to a further inflation of the already overcrowded ranks of journalism.