TIT BITS AND TWADDLE

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 910, 6 June 1896, Page 6

TIT BITS AND TWADDLE

The most interesting sight is that of a young lady, with eyes like a 4 gazelle,' a voice like a ' silver trumpet,' ' lips like rabieß,' and 'cheeks that have stolen the carnation of the deathless rose,' with her mouth full of watermelon.

They were talking about dogs the other day in the Parnell 'bus, and telling yarns about their sagacity. ' Well,' said Tompkins, ' in my opinion many dogs have more sense than their masters.' ' That's so,' chipped in Jenkins, ' I have a dog like that myself.' And yet he could not understand why everyone should burst out laughing.

The lady teacher of Standard 111. (small boys) was earnestly explaining the use of the hyphen. For the purposes of illustration, she chalked up on the blackboard ' birds-nest and, pointing to the hyphen, asked ' What is that for ?' There was a momentary pause of indecision, and then a young ' son ay the ould sod ' piped out, 'Plaze ma'am, it's for the bird to roosht on '

He was a long-haired temperance spouter, and was on his way to the public hall to deliver an address on the drink curse. Suddenly he was accosted by a well-dressed man, who warmiy shook him by the hand. : Guess you don't remember me,' said the stranger. ' Well, three years ago, I attended one of your meetings, and heard you draw a graphic picture of the able mechanic whose children went ragged, while the children of the publican with whom he spent his wages were dressed in silks. The story fitted my case to aT. 'And yon reformed?' 'Should say I did reform. "Went into the public-house business myself.'

The Stochkeeper tells the following story in illustration of the sagacity and faithfulness of some dogs : — A short time back the engine-driver of a train near Montreal saw a large dog on the track. He was barking furiously. The engine-driver blew the whistle, but he did not stir, and, crouching low, he was struck by the locomotive and killed. There was a bit of white muslin on the locomotive, and it attracted the attention of the engine-driver, who stopped the train and backed. There lay the dead dog and a dead child, which had wandered upon the track and gone to sleep. The dog had given the signal to atop the train, and had died at his post.

At a recent concert a certain yourg mm who affects to know something considerable about music was loudly expressing his opinions about the various singers for the benefit of all within ear-shot. But he gave himself away very badly when he talked about Miss 's portmanteau notes. He had heard or read something about portamento and thought it was a fine word to conjure with.

The number nine appears to be closely interwoven with the fortunes of the Queen. The Duke of Kent, her father, was one of nine sons ; and the Queen is the ninth sovereign since the revolution of 1688. Born in the nineteenth century, in 1819 (1 — 8 — 1 — 9rrl9), she came to the throne in 1837 (I—B—3—7—l9), in her nineteenth year. Her husband was born in 1819 ; she has had nine children, and her eldest son, born on the ninth of November^ married the daughter of Christian IX. of Denmark, who was then in her nineteenth year.

' Sister Mary Jane's Top-note ' is the name of the latest comic ditty which has taken London by storm. It occurs in a variety piece called' The Gay Parisienne,' and iB sung by Miss Freear, a tiny dwarf, got up as a ' slavey ' out for a holiday, and wearing a huge hat and what she calls ' fevyers ' as big as herself. Here is a specimen verse : —

She let it go one evening, and the organist, poor man, Went flying through the window, and away like mad he ran. It twisted all the organ pipes, and the boy that blew the wind Got jammed into the bellows hole, and left his boots behind. But Mary sat so saintly, for the poor girl didn't know — She cleared her throat to sing again, but every one said 'No!'

The following anecdote, which has been told of many learned men, originated with the painter Barrett. His only pets were a cat and a kitten, its progeny. A friend, seeing two holes in the bottom of his door, asked him for what purpose he made them there. Barrett said it was for his cats to go in and out. ' Why,' replied his friend, ' would not one do for both ?' ' You silly man,' answered the painter, ' how could the big cat get into the little hole?' 'But,' said his friend, ' could not the little one go through the big hole V ' Egad.' said Barrett, ' so she could, but I never thought of that.'

A clergyman —we needn't say where — took his little grand- daughter with him to a confirmation service, and afterwards to tea at the residence of one of the leading parishioners. There she met some other little girls, and, childlike, they began boasting of their respective possessions. The parishioner's little danghter was especially proud of a hen that had lately been given her. 'It lays an egg every day,' she said. ' Pooh,' remarked the clergyman's grand-daughter, with a disdainful toss of her small head, 'my grandpapa is a lot better than that ; he laid a foundation stone yeßtf rday.' This story must be true, of course, for it is vouched for by a religious paper.

A witness in a theft case was asked the reason for his statement that he suspected the prisoner was a rogue the moment he saw him. ' ' Becoae,' he said, ' 'c 'ired my rooms vithout beatin' down the price.' 'Is this a rule without many exceptions ?' ' Hit's a rule vithout no hexceptions, yer vorship ; honest men are halways stingy, and never satisfied huDless they get a shilling's worth of anythink for tenpence.'

During his recent visit to Taranaki, the Colonial Treasurer was banquetted at Stratford, and. being pressed for a song, he responded with the comic melody, ' There's bound to be a row.' After this, he cannot be accused of a want of humour But why should politicians confine these little diversions to banquets ? An occasional song or step dance in the course of a speech would prove as good a draw as a mustard plaster, and would render the proceedings highly edifying and entertaining.

The school teachers of the Wairarapa bad a conversazione not long ago, and invited the members of the School Committee. It was followed by a little dance for the very select. Daring one of the intervals, a School Committeeman approached the most exclusive set, and as he mopped his steaming brow with a red bandanna, he remarked, • Oh, aint it 'omely ; ain't it just. I does like to see people enjoying of themselves, and so nice and sociable-like, too. It does me 'art good, it does !' The lady teachers, however, thought him rather too 'omely altogether.

They are still laughing on the other side of the duck-pond at some of the mistakes made by the ladies of South Australia in exercising the franchise for the first time. One lady, it appears, created somewhat of a sensation by remaining in the voting compartment an unconscionably long time, so that at last the presiding officer and the officials began to think she must have taken a fit, or that something else of a dreadful nature had happened. A feeling of delicacy restrained the officials from intruding behind the screen for some time, but at last, getting seriously alarmed, one of them ventured cautiously to look in, when the lady explained that she had been knocking away at the back of the booth for fully twenty minutes, thinking it to be a door, but that no one had come to hike her paper.

* Bohemian,' in the Chrisiehureh Press, tells the following story of how a smart commercial traveller was 'bad ' by a country draper : The draper in question, who is visited in the coarse of the month by the ' Oar Mr 'of a good many firms, hit upon the device, when giving the order, of asking for half-crown subscriptions for a piano. They gave, of cour&e ; they daren't refuse on business grounds; and they consoled themselves by reflecting that the piano would doubtless be a source of innocent pleasure to the villagers in the Mechanics' Institute or the Sunday-school, or some other local institution. But at; length one of them inquired in a friendly way next time he'called. 'Well, Mr , have you raised the money for that piano yet ?' ' Oh, yes; you can hear it playing upstairs.' ' Upstairs ! Why, I thought you were gettin git for the Sunday-school or something.' 'Oh, no; it was for my daughter; the missus thought it would be nice for Martha Jane to learn music'

Sydney Truth has not yet recovered from the shock given to its delicate feelings by the mistaken arrest of the New South Wales tourists (Messrs Mounsey and Anstin) at Rotorua. In an article headed ' The New Zealand Outrage,' it delivers its pent-up bosom of the following choice Billingsgate : — ' In a recent issue we extracted from the New Zealand newspapers the details of the outrage perpetrated by the police of that putrid province upon two Sydney citizens, of means and leisure, who were tonring New Zealand in search of health and recreation. The remarkable feature of the malicious prosecution in question was the hog-like stubborness of the police in persisting in the detention of the tourists a couple of days after it was demonstrated that the victims of this police -outrage were, on the crucial date, hundreds of mileß away from the scene of the supposed burglary.'

The politicians of New South Wales don't stop at a trifle when seeking to make capital at the expense of an opponent. The terrible charge has just been flnng against the Minister of Education that, quite lately, he was caught playing kiss -in - the - ring at a place called Monkerai. And his accuser boasts that he has obtained a photograph of the interesting spectacle. Thereupon, one of the Government organs indignantly exclaims : ' Exactly why the Minister should be debarred from chasing a red-headed girl round a forty-acre paddock and imprinting npon her ruby lips a chaste Ministerial kiss is not made plain, but it seems to be taken for granted that in doing ao Mr Garrard would be violating the Constitution, or betraying the peoples confidence, or sinking the dignity of his office, or something equally awful, hence the vehemence of the denial and the terrible nature of the accusation.'