Tit Bits and Twaddle.

Observer, Volume XVIII, Issue 1016, 18 June 1898, Page 15

Tit Bits and Twaddle.

Said to be first matrimonial tiff . She: 'Before we. were .married you uped to write me three letters a day.' „ He : • Did I really ?' She : ' Yes, you did ; and now yon fly into a temper just because I ask you to write me a little bit of a cheque.' He felt checkmated.

The knee was bent, The blucher went Paternally directed : In pieces two Beside the gate, . , The yotmg man lay bisected

It was the -day before yesterday. He walked into the office of a well-known local shent-per-shenter and said, ' I want to borrow—' 'Yes, ma friend,' interrupted the over-eager bill-discounter, ' how much do you vant, and vat Eecurity have you to give ?' ' Well, 1 he drawled, ' I only wanted to borrow a match to light this here jenpe ; I'll give you a mortgage over the pipe^and you can have the tallow on the lucifer.'

He was a much : battered vag., and when the Wellington beak asked him if he had got anything to say for himself, he replied, ' Yes, yer Washup. This is the 50th time I've been run in for vagrancy, and I thought we might get up a little Jubilee.' - . ' , : ,

There was a young man in the corps, Who ne'er had Been, drilling ~beforp3, - And they wanted to guide His ungainly struide ; But they trnide and. trnide Till the young man duide, And the captain he sat down and sworps

.They were discussing a mutual friend on the North Shore ferry-boat the other morning. ' Have you noticed,' said the younger individual, ' what a highly affectionate couple Dick and his wife are ? They have been married two years, .and yet they are still billing and cooing.' '• Oh, yes,' replied the elderly party, ' I've noticed she coos and he pays. the bills.'

There are now five Starr-Bowkett building societies in Wellington, besides one in Newtown and another at Petone. A member of one of the societies has had the lack to draw two loans of £300. Some months ago one fell to his lot, which he sold to another member for a bonns of £50, taking the said member's shares in exchange for his own. And now his new number has also been drawn . for a loan. The selling of loans by the lucky members is a matter of common occurrence, for of conrse the right to hold, money free of interest has its market value, and it doesn't always happen that the person drawing the right to it has an immediate use for the capital.

iU7 Murphy. — Do yez helave in dhrames, Biley ? S^Riley — Oido. AW- MuBPHY.-^-Phwat's it a sign uv if a married man dhrames he's a bachelor ? "^TJRiley. — Ut's a soign thot he'a goin' to mate wid a great dishappintmint — whin he wakes oop.

There is a rather disgusted detective lurking around down South just now. A lady's pocket had been picked of her purse, and he thought he had nabbed the culprit red-handed. But when the prisoner was searched in the watchhouse, the purse and its contents were missing. Consequently, tne man was restored to liberty. And when, next day, the detective found that pnrse in his own coat pocket, where the culprit had evidently popped it upon being arrested, they say his language was considerably more than tropical

Reef ton people, or some of them, have a different way of arranging the celebration of a great goldfields function from our gold seekers up here. There was a big gathering the other day to celebrate the opening of the new Progress battery. But it seems that two sets of invitations were issued One crowd was asked to ' luncheon ' at 1.30, and the other set of circulars notified that ' refreshments ' would be on at 3 o'clock. And when the ' refreshments ' folk came to compare notes with some of the luckier party there was a howl of indignation and a frenzied ripping across of contemned invitafiions. : .Ove visitor — he evidently didn't get lunch — vents his wrath thualy : —'The whole thing was grossly mismanaged ; it was a . vulgar, miserable affair, as many Reeftonites must feel.'

It is that mdc printer again. Jn spite of the fact that it was a ftylieh wedding, and that the chief performers belonged to the Very Niceßt People, he committed the paper to the alarming statement that the bridesmaids wore ' handBorne breeches-twicers, the gifts of the bridegroom ' And those bridesmaids are now in despair lest it Bhonld be imagined that they are getting ready to ' wear the breeks ' when their own turn comes ; and lest their own turn should be indefinitely postponed, they wish it to be generally known that 'breeches.' was a base misprint for ' brooches'

The eldest unmarried daughter of a highly respected citizen is complaining of a rude affront that she received the other night. It was her birthdtty, and it was being celebrated with a party which filled the drawing-room to such an excess that the window-sash had to be thrown up to keep the temperature just below boiling points And the eldest unmarried daughter, having been pressed to sing, was shrieking out at the top of her register the closing words of ' Sleep, My Dearest, Sleep,' when a gruff masculine voice at the window remarked with startling distinctness, ' Darned if I wouldn't like to, but it's no go while I've got to listen to that" bloomin' cater waulin'. 1 She did not respond to "■ the encore.

A Wanganui. paper is a. bit rough on Jock McKenzie. Inclosing its report of his speech at Stratford, it says, ' A. vote of thanks and confidence was carried by. " acclimatisation.'.' ' The base insinuation is that it .was an imported, vote. Or is that the way they spell ( acclamation- ".down Wanganui way ? ' . -• . '

' An Auckland masher was visiting his parents in the country not long since. And as hia habits -were not of the early rising- sort, the father of the family ventured to remonstrate. ' When I was your age,' he said, ' I always got np with the lark.' ' Oh, that's nothing, father,' briskly replied the hopeful heir, 'we fellows in the city often keep the lark up all night.'

Only a hair on his shoulder, Long, and wavy and brown ; Only a cock-and-bull story, In exchange for his wife's deep frown. Only a broken broom-stick, Wildly waved in the air ; Only a strip of court plaster— (His wife had discovered the hair I)

The admission of women into the sphere of bowls continues to move ahead. Napier was the first to knock tinder to the new fashion, and now the Christchurch Bowling Club has resolved to surrender at discretion. Next season they are to have a . ladies' day once a month. It is now up to Mrs Daldy, Mrs Nicol, Mrs Yates and Co. to see that the Auckland bowlers are made to 'Bkip ' into line with Napier and Christchnrch in this recognition of the rights of woman. The presence of a party of serious women may serve to keep in check the bias of the local bowlers for ' kissing the kitty.' Scene : Auckland . merchant's office. Time : morning after Steeplechase Day. The boss (a man of much piety) to junior clerk : ' I am informed, sir, that . you actually attend races and bet on horses la that so?' ■ v Thejunior: v I — cr — I — ' The boss (angrily) : ' Come, sir, no prevarication ! Were you or ware you not at the races yesterday ?' The junior: ' Y-yyes, sir. And I won over £50 ' The boss (excitedly) : ' Over £50 ?— where d'ye get your tips from ?'

One of the things one would rather have left unsaid cropped up in the Wellington Magistrate's Court the other day. A deed of agreement, that included several errors, was being discussed. The magistrate chipped in with a remaik that it was very evident the deed had been drawn by one who was incompetent. Then added the saving clause — ' at any rate, by one who was evidently not a lawyer.' But he looked a bit uncomfortable when one of the lawyers engaged in the case owned up that he himself was responsible for the deed — at least, his clerk had drawn it up. A silence that might be felt was broken by the Bench murmuring something to the effect that ' clerks often mislead one, and were responsible for many mistakes,' a remark which hardly improved matters.

It happened quite recently, and haa afforded no end of fnn in a certain Auckland congregation. . Some nine or ten months ago one of the brethren lost his wife, and, being not too old and fairly well off, some of the middle-aged, and even some of the young and eligible ladies, started to shake out their shoulder-of-mutton sleeves and dandy op their front bangs in the hope of beiDg appointed permanent consoler to the afflicted brother. Bat to their disgust and disappointment the announcement came like a thanderclap, while they were conducting a little mothers' - meeting, that the dear brother had been quietly spliced onfc of their church altogether to a widow who had just lost her husband. It was really shocking, they declared, and they were resolved to make it hot for him and no mistake.

However, they were mollified a few mornings ago when they each received a square of wedding- cake, a liberal allowance, nicely iced and tempting. . They each slept on it during the night, and had breakfast off it in 'the morning* But that congregation was abnormally small the next Sunday. The recipients of the wedding cake were conspicuous by their absences and on inquiry it was found that they lay on a bed cf sickness. The cake had been medicinally prepared and, what was worse, the widower was ' not ' married, bnt before the stoim properly broke he led the. lovely widow to the altar. The widow has several grown- up daughters, and almost immediately afterwards one of them went to the altar with a nice young man. Just before she left home for the chnrcb, a packet was put into her hands, which was found to contain a nealty - dt signed coffin in black. Evidently one of the disappointed sisters had struck back.