A Stern Rebuke to Follow.

Observer, Volume XVIII, Issue 1024, 13 August 1898, Page 15

A Stern Rebuke to Follow.

Tommy Taylor: I only feel a rebuke from a man who is clean-handed, and therefore I ignore rebukeß from the Premier.

A good laugh was occasioned at a meeting of the Board of Governors of Canterbury College a few day ago by the Rev. Gordon Webster stating that ' the brainlesß eons, of rich men were invariably put into business.' The laugh provoked by the reversal of the familiar assertion that 'the fool of the family is always trained for the church ' was as heartily enjoyed by the mercantile members of the Board as by their clerical colleagues.

There appears just now to be a decided slump in legal matters in Christchurch. The Press Btates that on Thursday of last week there were no bankruptcy matters to come before the usual sitting, and on the following day the banco list was a blank. If this goes on much longer the Government will have to be appealed to on the subject of placing the lawyers' names on the Labour Bureau list.

The burglar had been a-burgling a Bendigo warehouse, and the storekeeper, on entering the premises in the morning, found everything in a fearful state of disorder, many things broken and scattered about, many scorched, and a great black patch on the ceiling. It was discovered presently that a small keg in which gunpowder was kept had exploded. Fortunately there was not much powder in it at the. time, or the whole place must have been blown up.. Later a sheet of paper was discovered, bearing this inscription :—' You fool! why don't you paste up ' no smoking,' when you leave gunpowder about where strangers can get at it ? I might have been blown to pieces. — Youtb with contempt, The Burglar.'

Here is a sample of what free education is doing in Australia. The sample wag received by a Eandwiek lady whose dog, the scribe alleged, had bitten holes in his pants, and is reprinted from Truth with all the native originalities and orthographical eccentricities of the original : sh II of Mrs King. I send you thes lines to you. I want you Mean to do bout your dog bitting me. I want you to rexpance me for my Panoe And . it will course yon B— shilling to Put a nother pair of pance in it Place, and if you mean to pay me give it to the boy that I have Beaing watirig lor and Ancer for to weeks and pleace to send a Ancer back. -A. H. Cakr Cair ot stpualot Mrs fin ranwick.

What are oar kiddies coming to ? There is a little chap in Wellington, only twelve years old, who wanders away from home just when it pleases him, and doesn't come back till the newspapers raise a hne and cry, and someone he has been loafing on caffs his ears and sends him home. And even then he refuses his parents information as to where he has been. Also, every other day we see people bringing their youngsters into Court, and asking that they be sent to industrial schools because they have got beyond control. Seems a want of parental grit somewhere. " Magistrate Beetham scored - one at Christchurch the other day, by telling one despairing parent he wouldn't do anything of the kind, and advising him to ' take the child away and give him a good spanking.' Nothing like the good old ways in this matter.

Teacher : ' You are painfully slow with your figures, Tommy. Now speak up sharp. If your father gave yonr mother & ten pound note and a five pound note, what would she have ?' Tommy: 'A fit.'

A Caulfield market gardener caught some men stealing his cauliflowers the other week, and, with a gun to help him, made them Bit astride a rail on a cold night till the police arrived. A few market gardeners from Caulfield wonld not be amiss in Auckland during the winter. Watching the firewood in some of our back yards would keep them fairly well employed.

The troubles of an unpopular candidate for Parliamentary honours at JtJallarat some years ago is recalled by Melbourne Punch. He bad been rather a smart cricketer in his younger days, and the egg was then a much more freely nsed .political factor than now. This particular candidate waa very freely egged, bat so expert was he as a catcher that the marksmen rarely scored off him. He simply faced the crowd, and as long as the eggs came one at a time, caught them very neatly, and placed them unbroken on the table. One night the enemy combined to frustrate him, with the result that he was smothered under about a score of broken eggs that had been aimed simultaneously. This was more than human nature could bear, and, the candidate lost his temper, and starting with a small pile of poultry fruit that he had resoued, he furiously bombarded the audience, pasting friend and foe alike. That night the candidate withdrew from the contest, eggaaubeted.