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Observer, Volume XVIII, Issue 1025, 20 August 1898, Page 15

It was at the County Council meet, ing in Faeroa. Cr. McGruer-— ' Is it agreed?' Chorus of ' Yes.' Cr. McGruer — ' Then I'll second it.' This is assuring success, right enough.

1 1 will be master in mv own house,' he declared. Just then a flat-iron, truly aimed by the missus, bonnced off his crust, and he woke up two dayß after in the hospital. 'Twaß ever thus. Every man intends to have his own way after marriage, bat eventually his wife relieves him of a false impression.

Some joker in a country district of Wellington, finding the door-keeper of a concert neglectful of his duties, took advantage of the opportunity to introduce a call into the ball, Whereupon it was decided that enough of its kind were there already, and the poor baste was summarily ejected.

' I paid a man a cheque a few days ago,' says a writer in the Blenheim Express, ' and when he alleged he would have to pay a shilling exchange, I gave him a shilling. Imagine my astonishment to receive by next mail one shilling's worth of stamps, with a memo, to say that he returned the shilling, as he cashed the cheque without paying the exchange.' It was his idea of honesty.

Is football degenerating ? First youth : ' There— aint he a dandy 1' Second youth : ' Did he score ?' First youth : 'Score ? No, but he knocked four blokes out, and kicks like a mule in the scram.'

There seem to have been some artistic curiosities in the art show held in Wellington last week. One painter — and the leading man in his line that Wellington owns— is told by a press critic that a certain alleged cloud effect resembles ' the shreds of a burst balloon,' and that in an attempted portrait 'he mistakes human flesh for a strange conglomerate of whipped cream and green mould ' Expressive, if not exactly complimentary.

The goldfields tour of a local liliputian opera company caused many a laughable incident. The children were doing their morning constitutional at Thames, and were walkiDg along demurely in pairs. ' Poor dears,' said an inquisitive old miner to his wife, ' they are from the orphan home, Sarah. Look how sad they are.' • Yes,' replied the old lady. Turning to a bright -looking urchin of ten, ' Well, my dear little man, and how long have yon been out ?' ' "Wot dyer mean, eh ? Dyer think I've been in gaol ? Go to Auckland, grandpa, and get your head Bhaved 1' And the procession moved on.

All the Wellington lawyers are sniggering over ' Jedge ' Kenny's latest magisterial eccentricity. One of their number had brought a case nnder a Conciliation Act award, bnt in the pleadings had wrongly named the union concerned. So he gave notice to the other Bide of his intention to apply to the ' Jedge ' in Chambers — Mr Kenny dearly loves to sit in Chambers, all same as the real judges — to have the plaint amended, by patting in the correct description. The case came on, and the amendment was allowed. Now comes the cream of the joke. The amending lawyer applied for costs— think of it, costs from the other side for allowing him to repair hia own blander. And, still funnier, the Court allowed them.

Mb Moebison : We seem to have put the cart before the horse in this colony. Dick: By jingo, if you had this blamed push to wheel round the country you wouldn't see anything iv it to make sport about.

What's become of the Opposition ? Hash 1 Silence ! Uncover thine head and read the tablet: — 'Sacred to the memory of Russell, Rolleston, and twentyeight others (alleged politicians), who lost their breath through sheer laziness. They fancied they were politicians, and in their fancy they fell asleep. Disturb them not, but let them rest, for they are just as useful asleep as awake.'— Guardian.

A butcher's lad -went to deliver some meat at a certain house where a fierce dog is kept. The lad entered the back yard, and as soon as the dog saw him -he pinned him against the wall. In a Bhort time the mistress of the house ran oat and drove the animal away ' Has he bitten you ?' she asked. I Noa,' said the lad ; 'aa kept him off by giving him your suet, an' ye jnst cam' in time to save the beef!'

He had been walking up and down outside a public house, with a carpet bag in one band and a parcel in the other, for two or three hours, nntil at last a policeman's attention was attracted to him. 'What are you doing here all this time, mister ?' kindly enquired - the bobby. ' Waitin' for a banker's son who borrowed £5 off me, and gimme' this parcel to 'old I' innocently replied the old gentleman. He was from the country right enough, and had forgotten to bring his wife with him.

Literal transcript of the code of regulations framed by a tiny Princes-streefc maiden for the better government of her dolls, and found pinned up on the walE where they would be constantly open for the inspection of the aforesaid dolls : — Eules. 1. Not to tell tails on one another. 2. Not to make a nise in the dressing room or at the gate. 3. anything left on the floor will have it hung round there neck. 4. Not to right on the gate or walles. 5. Not to right on the desks. 6. todo what I tell you.

Simple as he looks, it doesn't always pay to play off the small jokes at the expense of the almond-eyed colonist. Down in Masterton, a Scot from the Highlands of Mauriceville caught sight of a Chow standing in the doorway of hiß ' glenglocely' shop, and, thinking to raise a langh cheaply, addressed him with the remark, • Eh, mon, John Chinaman ; yon likee rice ?' With his usual good-humoured grin, John indicated that he did ; then, stepping out of the doorway, he planted his dirty claw-like talon in the ribs of the Caledonian, and demanded, ' What price pollidge, Mr Scotchman ?' And the laugh was last and longest against Sandy. A civic dignitary was record-break-ing at the Blenheim Poultry Association dinner the other night. And right well did he succeed ! In an eloquent speech on the resources of the district he mentioned that the average potato yield was ten tons to the acre. Kising to the occasion, he assured his hearers that last season he knew of land -which yielded thirty four tons of 'spuds' to the acre, and other land that returned one hundred and four bushela of barley pet acre. He would stake his reputation, he said, on his statements. Looked at in the fierce light of day, the reputation would suffer somewhat.

It was in the train from Sandgate to/^riabane, and a earful of passengers were talking about telescopes, each one professing to have looked through ' the largest in the world. 1 One after another told of the powerful effect of the respective telescopes. At last a qaiet man said mildly, ' I once looked through a telescope. I don't know as it was the largest ia the world ; I hope it wasn't. But it brought the moon so near that I could see the man in it gesticulating wildly and crying out "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" The old duffer thought it was a big cannon that was being pointed at him.' The quiet man then subsided, and so did all the rest.

You can't beat the fish liar. There is a yarn current down in the Wairarapa about a local crack shot, who the other day saw an eel in the creek stalking a rabbit on the bank, and shot him in mid-air as he lept. But this is small potatoes compared with some of the Maori eel stories. The East Coast natives are said to preserve the remains of a sacred eel 30 feet long that dhey have had for four generations. In the same district they tell of a ling fish that roved around there some ten years ago, and was decoyed with the bait of a pigeon to a place where the fire of a whole party was concentrated upon it, and then blown to death. It took six men to drag the thing ashore, and it measured 30 feet. The flesh was sufficient to last a whole camp of. sixty men for three days. Also, in the Bay of Plenty district, there is reputed to be a monster something like 100 feet long that has never yet been caught. Many timea have native braves sallied out against it, but its record is so terror-striking that whenever it has appeared they have beaten a retreat. These . are but samples of the. taniwha tales.