TIT BITS AND TWADDLE

Observer, Volume XIV, Issue 794, 17 March 1894, Page 9

TIT BITS AND TWADDLE

There are few people who can pay a just debt without acting as if they were conferring a favor. After a man has trodden barefoot on a tack the parrot has to be kept out of the room whet) the minister calls. Somebody advertises in the Star that he has lost two false teeth. Let ua suggest that he may have swallowed them. Startling ad. from Southern paper : 'Mr and Mrs Louis Mosea (expect in NewZealand next voyage of the Gothic) have left off clothing of every description. Inspection invited.' Very ehestnutty. During the hearing of an English divorce case the other day, a lady witness said she knew the marriage would turn out unhappily, as when she ' cut the cake ' she cat her fingers at the same time, and that always meant trouble coming for the newly tied-up couple. It was at a church meeting in Melbourne the other day. Someone asked whether a certain lawyer, a member of the flock, whose financial affairs are notoriously involved, had 'got religion.' Another lawyer replied : ' No, I think not, unless he has got it in his wife's name.' Somebody has said of a kiss that it costs less and gratifies more than anything else m creation. But that was not the experience of a certain noble English lord who while on a visit to Devon one Christmas time snatched a kiss from his partner while under the mistletoe. His host instantly expelled him from the house. Her Worship again ! A Welling- ! ton scribes writes: — ' It is not very likely that even Oi.ehunga, whose collective intelligence isn't very great, will ever i again commit the absurdity of choosing a i woman for its chief citizen.' It is not j very safe to sjwoulate concerning what the intelligence of Onehunga may or may not ] do. Sir 'Enry Parkes asked to what branch of the Christian church he belonged replied : ' Well, my parents belonged to the Church of England, but I can be hardly called a pillar of the church myself. Perhapß I .nay be called a buttress— l support it from the outside.' Guess 'Enry is a pretty bad advertisement for the ontside of a church. During the hearing of an English breacti ot promise case the other day Justice Hawkins remarked : ' I see the defendant says he loved you from the bottom of his heart ? What is love that comes from the bottom of the heart ? Is it better than that which oomes from the top ?' Of course, as in duty bound, ' the court was convulsed with laughter.' These judicial pleasantries are so excruciatingly funny. Commenting on the Aldis case the Westminster Gazette characterises the treatment of the persecuted professor aa 'a scandal,' and adds 'there is not even the excuse of financial distress, for New Zealand, as its friends are careful to proclaim, is uniquely prosperous amongst the Australasian colonies.' But what the Srosperons condition of Maoriland has to o with the sacking of Mr Aldis the Gazette doesn't stop to tell us. The ' Australian Salesman ' (used to be the Amerioan salesman — why this change ? But perhaps it is as well not to inquire too closely into little things like that) was at Roxburgh (Otago) lately. Here he hired a pair-horse buggy to take himself and his stock-in-trade (which includes the two beauteous damsels who do the plank act) to Alexandra. Only two horses with a buggy-pole attached turned up in the latter township. This seemed to indicate that there was something wrong somewhere, and a search party went to investigate. They found fragments of the vehicle (and also of the stock-in-trade) scattered all along the route. But the young ladies having, happily, alighted on a soft place, were unhurt. The buggy proprietor sent in a bill for -£21 10s damages. The salesman refused to. part. Trouble. Judgment tor plaintiff for amount claimed and costs — .£3O 8s in all. A distress warrant waa applied for and granted. The Salesman will soon make up Mb loss. A certain class of people and their money are proverbially easily parted.

There has been nothing in the daily papers concerning the three ringing cheers given by a largo crowd of people for the opposition liner Tasmania and her genial captain when the steamer moved away from the wharf last week. Had they been given for the Mararoa, now ! But this in so like the Auckland daily papers. ♦ Are you in a position to inform a puzzled public,' says the contemporary of a Christchuroh paper, ' who or what are the individuals parading the streets of Christchurch just now in mixed costumes and clay pipes. Judging by their coats and trousers they seem to be partly soldiers of some sort ; but judging from their hats, caps, pipes, the want of buttons to their coats, their boots and general aspect of " don't care a dern for nobody," they might be harvesters or shearers off duty. What are these things we see when we come out without our gun?' The editor explains that the persons referred to are volunteers attending the N.Z. Rifle Association meeting. New chum of guileless appearance presented himself at a Southern gaol tie other day with an ' order to view.' He was admitted and handed over to a new warder, with a ' show this man to the oells ' — in a deep bass growl from the * boss.' The warder shepherded the visitor to the bath-room, locked the door, and said: ' Strip off yer togs and look lively !' * But —I— I— I !' ' Slip off yer togs, I tell yer !' 4 But — ' ' You'll make me mad direotly ! Strip off yer togs, I tell yer, yer've got to have a bath.' Pretty soon that new chuih was as naked as when he was born. He plunged in. Then the warder produced a. suit of broad arrows. 'Here, put them on !' Then the new chum found hiß voice and yelled on explanation. The warder was profuse in his apologies. It was a moat unpleasant experience for the visito

A woman may be the friend of a man she does not love, bat she is always the enemy of a man she loves no longer. The late Baron Dowse used to tell this story. *It was the first day of the Cork assizes. The jnry filed in and the officer of the court said : " Gentlemen, yell take your accustomed places if you please." And may I never laugh again,' the Baron would add, 'if they didn't all walk into the dock !' A Christchurch paper thinks 'it would be interesting to know how many perfectly sane persons are at this moment in lunatic asylums in the Australasian colonies and elsewhere.' It would also be. interesting to know how many of the dootors upon whose certificates persons are committed to these asylums are competent to distinguish between sanity and madness. Says Dr. Joseph Bell (the original of that famous detective of fiction, Sherlock Holmes) : — ' The fatal mistake which the ordinary policeman makes is this, that he gets his theory first and then makes the facts fit it, instead of getting the faota first and making all his little observations and deductions until he is driven irresistibly by them into an elucidation in a direction he may never hare originally contemplated. You cannot expeot the ordinary * bobby,' splendid fellow as he is so far as pluck and honesty go, to stand eight hours on his legs ana then develop great mental strength. He doesn't get enough blood to his brain to permit of it. The only feasible scheme which strikes me would be to get a good man and give him carte blanche about the choosing of his assistants and the special education of j them.'

Money may not biing happiness, as some people deolare, but most of ue would like to try the experiment for ourselves. When a bachelor says he is single from choice it makes him mad to ask him why the girl made choice of some other fellow. An Australian paper says that honest professional sculling is dead, and suggests an epitaph * Killed by beer and bookmakers !' An itinerant lecturer and corn-curer rejoicing in the appellation of Smith was oommitted for trial at Maryborough (Q.) the other day on a charge of sedition. He referred in public to Her Goodness Gracious as ' Old £aur Kraut.' Makes you careful, doesn't it ? Sad story from the South. A good young man who runs a bible-class and distributes traots bought a ticket in a church bazaar art union. He paid a shilling for it and thought it would make a nice economical present? for hiß best girl, while it looked filling at the price. The ticket proved a winner. It won a gold watch. What did the good young man do—oongratulate the girl? Not at all. He insisted on her giving up the prize to him ! And now another engagement is ' off.' A small boy witness in a police court case at Rangiora (Canterbury) the other day, was asked the usual puzzler : 'Do you know what will become of you if you tell a lie ?' The boy fidgetted and said ' don't know.' ' You don't know where you will go if you tell a lie ?' repeated counsel in a Sunday school tone of voice. Here the magistrate chipped in. 'Do you know where you will go to if you tell a lie, Mr ?' JAnd the learned gentleman looked as foolish as the boy had done.

A man can nearly always have the last word with his wife if lie will oonsent to make it his name at the bottom of a cheque.

A number of young women in Glasgow have formed an Anti-Kissing Society. Those who have Been the members say that such a precaution was not necessary.

Placard hung up in a certain warehouse : — ' In Providence we trust. Everybody else spot cash.' Surely Providence must have a sleeping interest in that business.

A Masterton girl who jumped out of bed hurriedly the other morning to ' take in the milk,' was surprised that her ' little brown jug,' thrust out of the partially open door, wasn't taken from her hand aa usual. Peeping out cautiously she espied a stranger— and jnst then her hold on the door relaxing, it flew open and with a little scream of dismay she bolted into the house while the jug went smash and the stranger walked away smiling audibly.

Somebody took a ris9 out of the editor of the Otaki paper the other day. He published a letter in whioh the following par. occurred •. — We have a proverb in Welsh : " Wear alias ses," whioh in English is translated " In the interests of the people." You have written in our interest, and I hope the Government will now act with justice and recognise your voice, although not of the right oolour.' Of course * wear alias sea ' is not Welsh. Sorted out the letters make : ' We are all aasea.' Beminds one of the famous ' Chantry is an idiot ' hoax played off on an unsuspecting editor when he bossed the Wellington Times.