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Observer, Volume XIV, Issue 795, 24 March 1894, Page 3

Rev. G. E. Kennough, speaking at Hunstal (Eng.), the other day said : ' Many who ought to be with them on Sundays, who would be capable teachers, were too fond of sleep and sofa.' 'The Uptonian Sunday,' eh ?

William Hodge, Esq., late of Auckland, now of Melbourne, has become a Salvation Army official. He is MajorGeneral of the Prison Gate Brigade or Field Marshall of the Night Shelters or Commandant of the Big Drum, or something of that sort.

' If,' said Councillor Julian the other night at the usual fortnightly assembly of the City Fathers, * the Council can afford to spend .£7OO on a luxury like a clock it can surely afford to lay out a similar amount on the sewer at the doors of Beresford-street school, which is imperilling the health of the school children.' Hear hear ! c Referred to Streets Committee.'

Mr Shrimski, M.L.C., expressed the opinion in public the other day that the public baths at Oamara ' had not paid in the past because there were too many Sootohx&en in the town. It was the national failing of the Scotch not to want to wash.' 6 Phwat ?' roared a Scotch councillor, leaping to his feet, and with a scowl like an impending thunderstorm. Mr Shrimski murmured that it was ' only hia fun ' but the Sootohman evidently thought it was no laughing matter.

They gave the O'Regan a spread over on the West Coast (South Island) the other day. An effußive person named Petrie, proposed the health of the guest of the evening, adding: 'Mr O 'Began is a giant in statue, a giant in muscle and a giant in mind.' Petrie might have added that the O'Eegan is a gigantic bore when he gets on his Single-Tax hobby-horse.

The master of the Albert- street Truant School met a friend in town the other morning. ' Why, where have you sprung from?' said the friend. 'I have just come from Mo Arthur's dust-bin ' said the master. ' McArthur's dust-bin P' echoed the friend, ' why, what in the name of wonder were you doing there ?' ' Looking for truants. I can generally make sure of dropping on two or three on dustcart mornings. This morning I caught six.' MoArthur's dust-bin, it seems, proves as attractive to small boys as sugar to flies, or a latch-key to a married man.

Clement Scott, the great London dramatic critic, writing about Lonnen's return from the colonies and the enthusiastic welcome he received, says : 'It would be difficult to say how many times Mr Lonnen with genial good humour changed his costume. He was even more like Mr Lonnen in the last disguise than in the first. As to character, there was not a faint suspicion of it ; as to variety, it did not exist ; as to subtle changes and distinctions in which artists indulge, they were not attempted or reoognised.'