Tit Bits and Twaddle

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 947, 20 February 1897, Page 11

Tit Bits and Twaddle

A Waikato paper apologises to a lady for ohronicling her death. These country journalists break all records in their efforts to get ahead of the news. It was a case of a lost child. Mary Ann, after a vain search, atrolled home to Symond-street and reported, ' I lost track of the child, mvm — and—' Miatresa: 'Good gracious t Why didn't you speak to a r)liceman?' Mary Ann: 'I did, mum. was speaking to one all the time.' That fully explained matters. The Coromandel larrikins are playing up. Wherefore the local buster devotes to them a leading article full of sage ad-rice, winding up with the injunction, < Be gentlemanly m your larzikinisms,' which ib just about as steep an order as to be honest in your peculations, or temperate in your excesses.

A lady lately travelling second saloon oat from 'Ome offered the captain when nearing Sydney Heads £2 to put her name on the first-saloon list for publication in the newspapers. The captain told her to ' take the money to the reporters.' A -waiter fresh from « the ould sod ' has jnst been installed at one of the local hotels. He got a bit of a shock the other day when he saw a boarder reach for the 1 celery several times and make short work of it. Pat plucked the sleeve of ' the missus ' and said, • Look, ma'am, he's aitin' the bokay.' That waiter is still waiting for a rise in his salary. It's a missionary story told by a religious newspaper, and therefore must be" true. This particular missionary fell into the hands of cannibals in the South Sea Islands. They proceeded to examine him, pinching his flesh in different parts of the body to test itß fitness for a bake. He coolly took his penknife from his pocket, reached down, and cutting a large' piece out of the calf of his leg, passed it round as a sample. The savages tested it, and, finding it tough and tasteless, concluded not to. eat him. The leg was made of cork. Bntf the toughness of the missionary's calf is the merest circumstance compared with the toughness of his yarn.

The denizens of Kaipara Heads are going strong on ' kisa-in-the-ring.' It was the leading feature of a recent picnic up there, and the local paper pronounces it •an exhilarating pastime.' Evidently, the youthful reporter was very much on the job. ' A local barber was obliged to seek medical advice the other day. Of course he Bent for. Dr. Wilkina. After, a speedy diagnosis the doctor said, 'You are fagged out ; yon must give np all head-work.' The patient exclaimed, * But that means ruin ; I'm a hairdresser.' No ; it wasn't Dolf. He works off brain-fag on the bowl-ing-green. It happened at a country dance in the Whangarei district. Her young man waa acting as M.G , and she said to a mend, ' Don't you think George's moustaches are becoming ?' But the friend had been paying George no compliments since he threw her over for the other girl. That is why she said, ' Well, they may be coming, but they haven't yet arrived.' One of the magnates of Parnell gave a social party the other evening. There was Borne talk at the supper table over the case of a young lady who was reported to have been jilted recently. ' It's really dreadful, I think,' said the hoatess, ' to be disappointed in love.' ' Oh,' remarked the host, ' that's not nearly so bad as to be disappointed in marriage.' He has been endeavouring ever since to persuade his wrathful spouse that he was not speaking from personal experience.

The Wairoa Bell reports that at Arapohue 'we have about half-a-dozen couples engaged. Folly half of these neither smoke nor drink, nor in any other way squander their earnings.' We presnme that the phrase 'half of these' refers to the intended better halves of the affianced swains. Bat is it not rather rough on the belles of Arapohne to draw public attention to the fact that there are half-a-dozen of them who neither smoke, nor drink, nor squander their earnings ? He was botrad North from Lyttleton, on an extended holiday trip, on the eve of the recent storm. And after the manner of bachelors, there was plenty of champagne on the board to celebrate his departure. The upshot was that he had to be assisted to the seclusion of his cabin. When he awoke next morning, he found the vessel moored alongside. So collecting his luggage, he got on to the wharf, ana ordered the first cabman to drive him to Gilmer's Boyal Oak Hotel. ' Don't know where- it is, sir,' says cabby. ' Don't know the Royal Oak? Why, everybody in Wellington knows it.' ' Bnt this ain't Wellington — it's Lyttelton. Ship didn't Bail, air, in consequence of the gale.' • Ship didn't sail 1' murmured the bewildered traveller ; ' then why the dickens was I seasick ?' The cabman gave it up.

A Specimen birth-notice: * At ~~, the Vue of W. Wonders, of a son.*" Suggested family crest— a kid conchant; motto, ' Wonders will never cease.' A ready-made clothier of the laraelitish persuasion, "who does a healthy trade in ' reach-me-downs ' in a Southern town, fell in rather badly the other day. A customer strolled in and asked, ' Got any clean collars and cuffs ?' Solomon replied eagerly as he rubhed his hands in : anticipation, ' Blenty, my friendt, blenty.,' , 'Then/ said the pretended customer, 'why : - don't. you wear some?' But he did .h ot 1 wait to hear the reason why. . " ' A young man about town who was alarming his friends by the rapid irate at which he was putting on flesh has just taken to the ' bike.' And to a friend who was remarking upon the girth of his waistcoat he observed, ' Well, yes, I was getting stout, but since I bought my wheel I have been falling off considerably.' It was a candid confession, only he didn't mean to put it in that way. There is a lady up at Ponsonby who owes her husband nearly enough money to pay off New Zealand's national debt. Five years ago he agreed to give her £3 a week to remain in comparative silence, deducting a penny for each superfluous word she uttered. It was a safe undertaking on his part, for she never earned a single bonus, and the debt has been piling up since the first week of the contract. it a Dunedin auction- mart, the other day, a man whispered to the salesman; then he stood aside, and the auctioneer called attention with the hammer. ' Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, in a load voice, ' I have to inform you that a gentleman present has lost his pocketbook containing £50. He offers £5 for its return.' Instantly a small man in the background sprung upon a chair, and cried excitedly : « I'll give £10.' It happened up the Wairarapa the other day. The largest grocer of the place had just taken down his shutters and was busy washing his shop windows with a long-handled mop and a pail of water. A sportive squad of the rising generation came along, dropped an iron bolt into the - pail and stopped to Bee the result. The ' grocer worked on. When he came nearly to the end of his water and his work, he picked up his pail and threw the contents at the window, with disastrous results. The boys bolted. He is a sharebroker , and was spreading himself on the cricket-field on Saturday afternoon. When it came to his turn to bat, he had to face a very fast bowler, and the broker's chief concern seemed to be bow best to dodge the balls and save Mb shins. He was having a rather bad time of it when a rival broker yelled out ' What price Ivanhoes, old man ?' ' Well,' responded the batsman as he mopped his perspiring brow, ' it's just like this, you feel as if you wanted to get out.' The next ball y orbed him. The Masterton people seem to be quite as strong on Sawbath observance as they are on ' long sleevers.' Some of them have been scandalised because a local parson got the blacksmith to shoe his horse on Sunday morning. They wrote to the ■ papers, of course, and now the parson re- i plies that he merely had a loose horse-shoe tightened before setting out on a twentymile journey. Evidently, a parson's life is : not a happy one in the ' releegious ' Wairarapa. They live somewhere out Mount Eden way, and the honeymoon is just over. One day last week the best man was invited up to dinner, and when they adjourned to the drawing-room Mrs NynmNyum said with a pout, • Well, neither of you has said how you liked your dinner.' The best man was at a loss for a reply, but the husband boldly stormed the Dreach. ' Oh, it was very nice, indeed,' he said, ' but the salad tasted a little queer. Did you wash it well, darling ?' She replied with some indignation, ' Wash it, indeed ! Of coarse I aid — and with soap, too.' Since the story got out the best man has been receiving no more invitations from that quarter. The bicycle is sometimes productive of romance. A young couple who axe shortly to enter into the holy bonds of matrimony owe their acquaintance to a collision. She was scorching in a mild fashion and he was leisurely coming round a corner They met, and he fell into the gutter, while she ornamented the tram fine. She was showing rather more of her ankle than polite usage requires, so he limped over and pulled down her dress. Then they compared notes as to their machines, and a discussion on tandems was satisfactorily concluded a week later. She confesses that it was the delicate attention to her dress that softened her heart, and he — well, no, he hasn't said anything yet about well rounded calves, but he's a very susceptible young man and knows the lines of beauty when he sees them in a ballet.