TIT BITS AND TWADDLE.

Observer, Volume XVIII, Issue 1017, 25 June 1898, Page 15

TIT BITS AND TWADDLE.

'Alcoholism' has been the mild and correct way of putting it in Auckland lately. Bat they are ahead of us on the other side. ' Please, your' Worship, I'm under the chloride of gold cure,' was the excuse urged by a man at the Sydney. Water Police Court, in answer to a charge of drunkenness. " • 'l

The trade is ' dehiterating,' said a labour witness and political aspirant more than once at the Conciliation Board in Christchufch. It dawned upon the Board after a time. that he meant ' deteriorating.' Another witness insisted upon ' strignant ' regulations being made for the control of the trade.

• . • At a ' silver wedding ' party down South the other day, the hostess entertained the assembled guests with an account of the first quarrel between her husband and herself. ' After we had made it up, my husband (glancing at him affectionately) ' planted a tree in remembrance of it.' 'If we had only done that,' whispered a local parson's wife to her husband, ' what a fine avenue of trees we'd have had by this time ?'

An eminently humorous dispute is proceeding jnsi now between a Broken Hill parson and a lay reader of the same faith, the head man of a. off -shoot church. The parson ia one of a party who recently objected to the granting of a license to a hotel not far from his chmrch. The lay reader, an architect, was chosen to prepare certain plans for the proposed hotel, and because he accepted the work the parson is exceeding wrath, and has called upon the other to resign his office and all sorts of things. The back of the lay reader is up, and he snorteth fiercely.

'Well, good night, Miss A—-,' said a Dunedin young man the other evening to a Bbslyn girl at whose house he was visiting. ' I think it's better for me to go. I feel certain that if I stay two minutes longer I shall be indiscreet enough to kiss you.' • Well, good night, Mr F ,' blushingly replied the young girl. 'Oh, by the way,' she added, ' I want to show you my new photograph before yon go. It will only take two minutes ' The yonng man in question is the possessor of a bright intellect. He quickly embraced the situa-tion,-and the girl was in it.

Dunedin Presbytery met the other day to consider a protest against the Lord's Prayer being recited in Knox Church daring divine service, and the assembled saints standing up and joining in. The protesters were led by W. Hutchison, formerly M.H.R., and one of the grounds of protest was that, ' Because an innovation such as the one proposed, tending in the direction of a formal or ritualistic worship, ia more likely to generate subtle, insinuating hypocrisies than the Bimple Presbyterian mode of worship.' After Downie Stewart had polished off Hutchison, and a flood of eloquence suffieientto fill an issue of Hansard had been let off, the Presbytery declined to interfere. And so the Lord's Prayer is saved.

A romantic little story has been famishing food for street-corner gOßsip in Dunedin lately: The story commenced with the announcement a couple of weeks ago of a complimentary benefit concert, for which the tickets were vigorously pushed and sold well until the evening before the concert, when it was advertised that circumstances had arisen to prevent the beneficiaire from going to ' Australia, as had been intended, and that the nett proceeds would in consequence be handed to local charities. At thiß latter announcement people wonderfully elevated their 'eyebrows, and it was suggested that there was a young man in the case. The concert was held, and next morning there was a wedding celebrated at. the registrar's office, sufficiently early to enable a young couple to leave by the express for the North at 11 o'clock. The bride had attained her majority three days before, and in exercise of her own free will she married out of her faith (the Jewish), none of her own relatives being present' at the ceremony. The bridegroom is an nnromantic looking young man, who keeps the books of his father's business, bat it is said that he was handed as a wedding presgnt a cheque for £1000 by the said father, and a thing of that kind is worth. a good deal of romance. - , - •

'I've been in the Council five years,' said a Band wick (New South Wales) alderman, in response to, an interjection, and I haven't a streetrto my own house yet — that's a record for an alderman.' In Auckland, if you notice a street worth calling a ' street, you may be sure a councillor lives there. That's the difference. "■■•'• :

The Sydney Catholic Press and the Bulletin have been exchanging compliments. ' The former declares that.' all good Christiana should prefer to see a snake on their table rather than the , Bulletin.' The latter retorts ' there was a time when the Church was the bosscurser of Christendom, and now all the curse left in it would not get a bullock put of a creek.'

Gruesome story from South Dunedin : The wife of George Masrorian, a publican, gave birth to a child which died, a few minutes afterwards. At ten o'clock the', same night, her husband pat the body in a rough white pine box on some straw, took it to the cemetery and buried it eighteen inches deep. -Next day the assistant sexton found the body buried as described, covered np with some newspapers, and dressed in a I calico gown, and with a cambric, hankerchief round its head. He immediately informed the police, and the body was removed to the station. Subsequently, the father called on the sexton to purchase a ' "burial site, and was quite surprised to find the body of his defunct child was at the police station.

One of the ever-resourceful youngsters in a city public school was asked the other day what was the most powerful race in the world, and the teacher, who is a seal wart Briton, was astoanded at receiving the reply, ' The Cycle Bice.' It was probably this boy who, in answer to the question, ' What makes 'the sea salt?' replied, ' Please sir, the 'errings.'

This story is told of a wellknowa Roman Catholic priest. . The other Sunday he preached from the text : ' Two men -went up into the Temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself : — ' Lord, I thank thee .that I am not as other .men are . . . I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all .that I possess. " ' There he paused significantly, and looking hard at his flock, said, ' Iconld do with a few Pharisees in this congregation. ' ■ • ■-.

A glifa-tongued stranger called at a Masterton tailor's shop the other day, and after inspecting the entire stock of tweeds, finally selected one and was measured for a suit. 'If my wife approves of it,' he said, before leaving the Bhop, 'I will pay on delivery.' The clothes were duly sent home, the messenger being armed with a receipt in full. The stranger expressed himself pleased with the suit, at the same time handing the messenger a aealed envelope .containing, as. the messenger Buppposed, £5 ' ss.' But .when the tailor opened that envelope heiound it contained only £2 12s 6d. In a great Btate of excitement the tailor bolted off to interview his client— only to find he had Just left by train.

Sweet are the uses of advertisement, and by no one, perhaps, are they more appreciated than by the Chinaman who happens to have a -marriageable daughter for whom he deaires to find a huß> band. He begins years before his daughter is able to contemplate marriage, by placing a jar on the roof of his housed with its lower end towards the street. This intimates to passers-by that though there is a daughter in the bouse, she is at present too young too wed By- and bye, when the girl has arrived at marriageable age, the jar iB turned round with its mouth towards •the street, and after the wedding has taken place it disappears altogether. Like, however, begets like. Jars— family jars— soon begin to appear in the home of the newlywedded couple.

A Papanui lady, the wife of a local magnate, recently engaged, through a Christchurch registry office, a new ' gurl ' — just . out from Onld Oireland. The other night there was ' company ' to tea. ' Bridget,' said . the mistress, ' you have forgotten to pat a spoon for the stewed pears.' Whereupon Bridget: 'Sure, mam, Oi thought yez would pull 'em out be the tails, an' so Oi did !' For hard cheek it would-be difficult to beat the young woman who went j before the Wellington Benevolent Trustees to make a proposal. Her hnsband only earned 15a a week, and this sum was inadequate to support her and the baby, so she was going to take a situation at 12s and didn't know what to do with toe family pledge of aiffection— and would the Trustees please take charge of it?; Those Trustees have scarcely recovered their breath yet.

'He ran against my closed fist,' was the delicate manner in which a. witness in a recent case in the Christchorch'. Supreme . Conrt described an ' accident ' which occurred to. a gentleman whose fj tw waa broken in a iitfcle bit of a miaonderstanding at a country place.