TITS BITS AND TWADDLE

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 921, 5 September 1896, Page 11

TIT. BITS AND TWADDLLE

A Sydney weekly suggests, apropos of- recent developments, that every football eferee should wear a steel undershirt and carry a copy of the Riot Act in his coat pocket. Somebody sprinkled a number of tin tacks across a road frequently uaed by cyclists, in Nelson recently, the result being that several bicyclists who afterwards came along had the tires of their machines badly punctured. There are several coming candidates for Parliament in the South. One patriot notifies his intention to stand in a sixpenny ' Wanted Known ' ad. It is satirically suggested that if he goes on at that rate it may cost him half-acrown to get through the contest. A well-known Sydney society lady, native of San Francisco, has just returned from America, where she journeyed in order that her child might be born on American soil, and so possess all the rights and privileges of a ' free and independent citizen of the United States.' ' Who knows ?' she says, proudly. ' Some day he may be president !' An Auckland Lothario who ran away with another man's wife, has been brought up shore at Wanganui. There the injured husband overtook him and indicted npon him such chastisement that he had to seek succour at the local ho3pital and get bis wounds bound up. All this we gather from a Wanganui paper. Wonder who it is ? The women in an Oklahoma town outvoted the males in a recent election. A local publisher, desiring to announce the result conspicuously in his paper, despatched this order to a type-foundry : 'Please send Q3 one small cut of a hen. Women carried the election here, and I suppose we will have to swing out a hen instead of a rooster.' An up-to-date girl in a Southern town at a leap-year dance offered marriage to one of the swains with whom she danced, expecting that in default of his acceptance she would receive the usual alternative — a new dress. And so she did ; but she was horrified on opening the package to tind it to contain a suit of elaborately gotup grave clothes ! ' Served the huzzy right ' 0 will be the verdict of her more prudish sisters. It seemed as if a recent inspection of the Mariborough volunteers by Colonel Fox was never going to end, and the darkness was creeping ou apace, when the doleful strains of the ' Dead March in Saul ' were wafted upon the breeze. Nobody was dead, but the Garrison Band, who, after marching the companies on to the ground, had been placed some distance away from the centre of the military evolutions to amuse themselves as best they could, had quite exhausted their stock of patience, and were beginning to feel the cold ; and this was the ingenious means they used to impress it upon those whom it may concern the extreme desirableness of making a move homewards. The Colonel took the hint, too, for, after referring to the bandsmen as ' poor fellows,' who ' must be tired of waiting, 1 he gave the final orders of the day. Such'is the power of music. According to the Mayor of Tapanui, Prohibition has not panned out to the benefit of the business people of Clutha, as in a letter to the Press he says — ' I find that from Ist January, 1890, to this date there have been fourteen bankruptcies in the district, and of these eleven have been filed since 30th June, 1894, the date the licenses expired. As to private arrangements with creditors, deeds of composition and so forth, my information is not so reliable, bat I am quite safe in saying that from January, 1890, to 30th June, 1894, there were not more than four, and I do not believe there were so many. Since the last mentioned date, there have been to my personal knowledge six of these cases. That is, the bankruptcies under prohibition in a period of less than two years are more than three times as many as they were under license for the previous four and a half years, and the private arrangements with creditors have in the same time also greatly multiplied.'

By the last Cape mail comes the news of a wedding in a lion's den, an event which the local paper unkindly called ' A Chance for the Lions.' The marriage was to take place in the ' den ' of Fillis' Circus, at Johannesburg, and as no cable has since been received as to any tragic results, it may be presumed that the lion-tamer Winschermen and Miss Malmaison were happily united to the accompaniment of roars and growls, instead of the traditional chiming of sweet voiced bells. ~

A lady visited a Nelson doctor the other day and took up 20 minuets or so in describing her ailments to the man of physic. At last she rose to go, but bethinking herself of a few other little details wasted another ten minutes of the buoy medico's time. She complained of ' a sinking feeling ' and the doctor prescribed some pills, a little bottle of which he gave her to take away with her. At last she went and the doctor heaved a profound sigh of relief as the door closed on her. A minute later the door opened again and the lady popped her head in to say, ' Oh doctor, what shall 1 do if the pills in the bottle don't cure me ?' ' Swallow the cork ' savagely replied the doctor, ' they tell me cork is good for a sinking feeling.' She went then, and she hasn't been back since.

A Queensland Civil servant started to plant cabbages the other day (says Quiz), and he had his little son to help him. The youngster handed his faiher the cabbageß, and the old man stuck them in the holes he had dug. ' There were only fifty of them,' he says, ' and I worked away as hard as I could so as to get the job over. It seemed somehow as if I'd never get through. I'd been at it for hours, and my back was just bent double. Every fresh hole I finished I'd say to myself, ' Well, this must be the last one,' but there was that boy of mine always ready at hand with a cabbage, and so I kept on. When I'd just reached the condition of an inverted U, I thought something must be wrong, and so I cast an eye over the result of my labours. Good lord, sir, there wasn't a single cabbage in the ground. No sooner had I planted one of the blamed things than that imp hauled it out and gave it to me to plant over again. You never saw such a fine prospect of holes in all your life. A goldfield was a fool to it. Well, I didn't do any more digging that. day. I devoted myself to remonstrating with my heir, and the remonstrance was carried out with a slipper. I have a gardener now. It's more expensive, but it doesn't tend to the use of bad language.'

Modern instance of direct Divine interposition I Thus the War Cry, referring to the. last Blenheim flood:— 'God, in a marvellous manner, kept the quarters dry, although they looked like a house in Venice.' Whereat a Southern writer wants to know does the War Cry mean that Providence did not permit the water to rise to its natural level within the Salvation Army barracks ? ' A Wanganui carpenter, sent to make some repairs in a private house, entered the apartment of the lady of the house with his apprentice. • Mary,' the lady called to her, ' see that my jewel case ia locked at once.' The carpenter understood. He removed his watch and chain from his vest with a significant air, and gave them to hia apprentice. ' John,' he said, ' take these back to the shop. It seems that the house isn't safe.' The expansion of feminine headgear which recent fashions betoken is mai ter for concern to the average theatre-goer of the male persuasion. And fie knows how to show his gratitude for mercies vouchsafed. For when a party of ladies seated themselves in the stalls of the Wellington Opera House a few nights ago and proceeded to doff their ' picture ' chapeaux, they were rewarded with a round of applause from the pit as hearty as any given to the performers on the stage. A well-known traveller residing not a hundred miles from Invercargill was met the other evening on his arrival at a Western township by a deputation who mistook him for a well-advertised temperance lecturer who was expected the same evening to hold forth on ' the evils of strong drink.' After a hearty greeting Mr invited the deputation into the hotel to have a ' taste ' before going to the hall. This they declined, saying ' There is plenty there.' Now the Prohibitionists are nervously asking what this last remark means. During the hearing of an application in the Warden's Court at Waikaia lately, a witness admitted that he had told the opposing party what was not in fact the truth, but he ' was not on oath then.' The warden (Mr E. S. Hawkins) stopped the witneßs, and refused to believe his evidence. He detested a liar, and wished a man could be punished fcr lying. He could understand a slave lying, but not a free man ; neither could he understand any man having any respect for a liar. Then, addressing counsel, he asked, ' Have you a witness who won't lie ?' The desired witness happened to be forthcoming. It was at a Sydney church bazaar. A fine, majestic - looking, enthusiastic worker in charity's sacred cause bailed up a poor lanky dude, who was something in the ' service ' and in mortal dread of being ' retired,' and to him she sweetly said : ' Now, Mr Slimpurse, you really must take a chance in this lovely pipe ; you really must. Only fancy, this pipe is worth £2 and you can have a chance in my raffle for 23 only.' 'Oh,y-y-yes, madame,' stammered poor Mr Slirnpurse, ' but I'm sorry to say I don't smoke. 1 ' Oh, you can easily learn once you have a pipe, you know,' suggested the lady ; 'why, some girls smoke cigarettes, I'm told ' Yes. I deasay they do,' faltered out the unlucky dude; ' but tobacco does not agree with me, it makes me horribly Bick ; and I wouldn't have any use for a pipe," doncherknow.' And then the fair bazaar bandit, struck with a Budden happy thought, hooked on to her victim by the coat, and exclaimed, 'Oh, that doesn't matter much, because there isn't the slightest probability of your winning the pipe at all. Two shillings, please. I've got your name down — thanks — and good-bye !' ' Good-bye, ' replied Mr Slimpurse, sadly; and then he added softly, 'to —to my last two bob. Now I'll nave to tramp home.' An applicant for a junior clerical position in any Sydney Bank nowadays undergoes inucn ordeal ere the billet heaves in view. The formal letter of application requires to be personally substantiated by one or two well-known citizens,customers of the particular bank preferred. Then a letter to the secretary of the Banker's Institnte is handed by the bank manager to the cowering candidate, authorising his examination by the Institute, and directing that official to forward the result to the B.M. The C.C. presents this, and is notified to attend upon a certain day, the field of examination not being specified. However, on arrival of due date he again attends, and is then requested to fork over £1 for examination fee, no previous intimation of this charge having been given. The despairing youth hastens forth, returns with this sum and his stock of lore re English history, geography, English composition, French arithmetic, ~&c , and is then inspected. Then, should rival applicants have been bested, he is, after further formality, duly appointed to the position upon three months' probation, after which he draws a salary of £25 for an indefinite period. Truly, bank billets are not what they were before the boom. — Bulletin.

A Westralian man declares that in winter Goolgardie is as cold as charity, but that in summer ' the only thing cool about it is the first syllable of its name.' The latest and greatest American industry is what is known as nose-bleaching Many persons suffer from red noses— chief causes being getting ' tight.' With men the tightness is caused by liquor, with women by stays too small in the waist. The nose-bleachera bave a regular course of treatment for the purpose of reducing the glare on the nasal beacon light, and the business is said to be a highly profitable one. It has taken the ingenuity of a London woman to transcend all previous efforts of either sex to crystalise the intangible and turn the emotions into a source of revenue. She has consolation for sale, sympathy packages, so to speak, at so much a pound. Her advertisement reads : — ' Sympathy offered to those who are in trouble and nave no one to whom they can tell their sorrows. Interviews by appointment.' The eagerness of the women of Wellington to join the benefit societies established for their sex is partly explained by the privileges that membership entails, of rnbbing sleeves with ladies of rank. For instance, the Oddfellowesses can talk with gusto about ' our sister Mrs Wallis, the Bishop's wife j but they have to take second place to the Foresteresses, who proudly boast of their kinship with ' our dear sister Lady Glasgow.' Even in our own democratic colony a title works wonders — doesn't it, Sir Robert ?

The thickheadedness of Wellington pressmen, or at least of some of them, was conclusively proved at a recent performance of ' Trilby.' One of the aforesaid gentlemen was seated in the stalls, when a careless - individual in one of the upper circles dropped a pair of opera glasses on his head. Needleas to say, the glasses rebounded with infinitely more - damage to themselves than, i to the newspaper man. The other day a criminal was listed to be tried before a Melbourne judge who had presided at several of his previous convictions, and whom the prisoner suspected of being likely to be more than usually severe. Making known his suspicion to his lawyer, that astute individual got his Honor out of the way by subpoenaing him as a witness in the case and then not calling him. The subpcona was an effectual bar to his hearing the case. ! The lawyers of Wellington festively foregathered the other night in honour of one of their seniors having been elevated to the Bench. Towards the close of the proceedings, it is said, more than one gay young spark was himself ' elevated ' — but not to the JBench — and the trouble came when their hats had to be identified for the trip home. Some didn't know their own head-pieces, others had had theirs taken away in mistake, and late-comers on Lambton Quay beheld in the moonlight the sight of more than one respected limb of the law repairing home either bare-headed or under a chapeau, several sizes too big, that fell like an extinguisher over his ears ; or with a ridiculously small one perched on the summit of his cranium.