Tit Bits and TWADDLE

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 934, 5 December 1896, Page 15

Tit Bits and TWADDLE

The up-to-date-ness of the Chow. One of the latest sights of Wellington streets is a Chinaman bestriding a bicycle.

' If you don't know who was responsible, who was it ?' asked a very much mixed elector at one of the Southern election meetings.

The profits of beer. Those 'in the know ' state that the balance sheet of the Staples Brewery Company, which owns many hotels in Wellington, shows a clear gain of £12,000 for the last year.

Is it quite decent for the Salvationists of Wellington to dress up girls in Bailor garb in their street processions ? When the same thing is done by variety companies for stage purposes, they denounce it.

Mrs Smith was making an afternoon call upon Mrs Jones up in Newton last week, and, -after the manner of married ladies, was tenderly inquiring after the scions of the Jones family. ' And how is Tommy getting on at the school?' said she as she sipped her tea. ' Just splendid,' said Mrs Jones in calm defiance of Lindley Murray. ' The school-teacher is so fond of him that Tommy tells me she keeps him with her nearly every day half-an-hour after the other boys are sent home.'

There is a much disgusted Maori in Taranaki. He tried the New Woman dodge in a court case, and it didn't work. Sued for keeping an unregistered dog, he pleaded that it wasn't his but his wife's, bat the Court held against him and made him pay up. And when he got out of Court, John Maori relieved his feelings thuswise : — ' What'B the good of talking ? A woman can talk, ride the bicycle, and make the vote all the same as the man, bat the Court says she can't own a d knri. Too much the humbug.'

Bishop Gkijies : ' And we must all feel deeply grateful to Mr Mackie for the beautifal pictures he has shown us. (Catching sight of his own picture on the screen.) Really, ladies and gentlemen, I did not know my picture was there. lam quite '

An instance of the enormities on which some Parliamentary candidates orate. Thus a Southern aspirant on the land ballot question : — ' A young man and a young woman both went in to ballot for a section at Cheviot. The arrangement between them was this : If 'c won the section, 'c married her; and if she won the section, she married 'im. She won the section, and she married 'im, and I call that dishonourable for the ballot.' And the audience smiled audibly.

They met at the backyard fence in Cook- street. ' Good marnin, Mrs Muldoon. la it well ye're f ailin' the day.' ' Vis, very well.' Mrs O'Hara : 'An sthrong, I hope ?' Mrs Muldoon : ' Yes, quite sthrong. I made Muldoon persave that last night when he came home drunk — election excoitement he called it.' Mrs O'Hara : ' Thin, as ye're quite sthrong, perhaps yell bring back the two washtubs yez borried last Monday.' The subsequent remarks on both sides are quite unfit for publication, and would also take up too much space.

Do you cast things here ?' inquired a country fellow the other day, as he sauntered into Price's foundry at the Thames, and addressed the proprietor. ' Ton cast all kinds of things in iron, eh ?' was the next querj . ' Certainly — don't you see that it is our business V ' Ah ! well, cast, a shadow, will you ?' He was cast out.

' Can you return my love ?' he cried, His eye with passion lit ; ' Assuredly I can,' she said, ' I have no use for it."

A parson and a digger were travelling by rail the other day on the West Coast and had a compartment all to themselves. The digger wanted to strike np a conversation, and he broke the ice by saying, ' Kin ye tell me, sir, just to settle a bet for drinks, how old the Devil is ? ' The parson took it as an affront and sourly answered, 'My friend, you must keep your own family record.' The rest was silence.

Napier Golf Clubbers, in their high and mightiness, are expressing indignation at the nigh notions of the caretaker of their links. They paid him the munificent Bum of 10/- a week, to which an over-generous private member added another shilling. But he, grasping fellow, wanted more, and has thrown up the job to look for something better.

A yarn is being told up country about a candidate for Parliament who, when a station-holder picked out a lot of fat W6thers for freezing purposes, and sent them by train to the city, on their arrival at their destination found that the majority of the so-called wethers had each a lamb or two alongside them in the trucks to keep them company !

' As women's earnings are less than men's, do you think it fair to charge the same railway fares"" for men and women ?' asked an elector at an election meeting in the South last week. It was a poser. The candidate had not looked at it in that light before. It did seem rather an injustice on the face of it. Of course he'd look into it.

It was in the Police Court, and the smart lawyer was on the job. ' Why did you bide Sullivan on that Sunday night ?' Witness : I did not see him that Sunday night.' Smart Lawyer : ' Will you swear your wife did not hide him ?' Witness (hesitatingly): 'Ye-es.' Smart Lawyer (more severely) : ' Will your wife swear she did not hide Sullivan that Sunday night. 1 Witness (more undecidedly) : Well, — I — don't — think — so.' Smart Lawyer (chuckling) : ' Ah, now, just explain to us why she can't. Speak up, now, and tell the truth.' Witness (with a smile of triumph) : ' Well, you see, I'm not a married man.'

Among the humours of the election comes a story of ye female canvasser. She had called upon an old gentleman in the interest of a particular candidate. The canvassee avowed that he was at one time a supporter of her friend, but that he had got tired of his political opportunism and about-face changes and couldn't vote for him any longer. And he proceeded to advise the fair canvasser to recommend her candidate to be more consistent in the future, and altogether delivered his opinion of the gentleman in terms of very forcible criticism it wasn't till some hours afterwards that the elector discovered that the lady whom he had made the mediam of his messages of advice was the candidate's wile. No doubt the counsel was duly delivered to the person for whose benefit it was intended.

The latest hospital yarn comes all the way from a mining township. A man suffering from typhoid lever was brought in from 40 miles back. But the hospital was full, and the patient couldn't be taken in or sent back. • Hold on,' said the man in charge; there's Jack Jones, he can't last more than a few hours ; come back in the afternoon, he'll have pegged out- by that time, and your mate can have his place.' The applicant returned to the hospital three hours later. The man in charge looked rather disappointed as he remarked, 1 Jones won't die ; come again — say in an hour or so.' At the third interview things were as before, but as the result of a conference, Jones was placed on a cold slab in the dead honse, and the fresh patient was admitted. The change was highly beneficial to Jones. In the cooler air he went soundly to sleep, and from that time mended rapidly, and was discharged cured. The narrator forgets to say what became of the other man.

The book canvasser, says the Spectator, like the poet, ia born, not made. Not long ago (so this story goes), one of these book fiends found his way — by Borne method or other, the secret of which is only possessed apparently by the 1 drummer ' and reporter fraternity — into the manager's room at a certain bank. He saw the manager, -who, as soon as he learnt what he had come about, ordered him out in about as rude a way as was possible. The canvasser knew his business, and said very quietly, ' I meet so many gentlemen in my calliag in the course of the week that I can afford to meet the opposite now and again,' and with these words he took his departure. But the next day he came again, and wished to open an account at the bank. He was shown in to the manager, and gave him such satisfactory reasons for wishing to open the account that he received a chequebook, etc., and deposited about three hundred pounds at the bank. Of course, the manager could hardly do less than apologise for his rudeness of the day before, and by way of atonement ordered a copy of the book— a ten guinea ' edition de luxe.' He also allowed the canvasser to go amongst his clerks, several of whom followed their manager's example, and likewise ordered copies. Three days afterwards there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the bank, for every penny of the three hundred pounds was drawn out and the account closed by the wily canvasser.