Tit Bits And Twaddle

Observer, Volume XXI, Issue 1179, 3 August 1901, Page 15

Tit Bits And Twaddle

Hand over tbe white flower to Blenheim. For the third session running, the Chief Justice has offered his congratulations on the blameless life of the little oily. His Honor had nothing to do bat don the wig and take it off again. Three sessions without a case is a record for the colony. The way in which juries are paid Is about as puzzling now aa ever it was. For instance, at the sitting, last week, of the District Court at Masterton, twelve good men and true who sat up till eleven o'clock at night to decide a case, received eight shillings for their trouble, while the jurymen who did not sit, bat who pat in an appearance for a couple of hoars on the day of sitting beoanse they had not been discharged, turned up the following day and got twelve shillings I

Snowballing at Taibape, away down the Coast, is not the cheapest of lnxnries. One pelter, who playfully did a little at a resident who wasn't taking any, was fined 10a and costs 13a, and twentyeight other cases were down for last week. The papers are telling of an agent in South Africa who lately sold the Bame property to three different people, got the cash, and then levanted to New York On the way to the steamer he called on a solicitor to whom he dictated the heads of hie will, leaving abont £1,500,000. including several valuable Sonth African estates, to various persons. To such a wealthy client the solicitor readily advanced £2000 for a few days, and he is now whistling for! the man who is missing from the land of lies and sorrow. A well-known lawyer on the other side, who prides himself on his handling of Chine Be nil nesses, is getting badly chaffed abont a recent examination. It was a case in which a Celestial of unusually keen glance was called as a witness. The lawyer began : ' What yonr name ?' ' Kee Lung.' ' You live this city ?' ' Yes.' ' You sabbis God V ' Mr Barrister, if you mean, "Do I understand the entity of • our Creator 1" I will simply say that on Thursday evening next I shall address a State Association oh the subject of the " Divinity of Chrißt," and shall be pleased to have you attend.' The Judge, Bay the papers, coughed most audibly, and the lawyer went down with a dullish tort of thud.

An Aaoklander who waß recently in Wellington Bays it waa amusing to ace in a butcher's Bhop down there a row of rabbita placarded, 'Blenheim rabbits, furntp fed' The Difference. The pessimist, all steeped in woe, Bits down and moarna « Because no fragrant rose can blow Without its thorns. The optimist Bhoata gleefully, Because he knows That where the thoroß are growing he May find the roae. A resident of Dannevirke is lamenting. He went to ohnrch one Sanday night lately, and somebody took his hat. The local paper contained the following the next day :— ' I shall feel obliged if the person who took my hat from the Presbyterian Church on Sunday night last will kindly return the hnia feather. He is quite welcome to the hat.' Moral : Don't go to sleep in church. The joys of a country teacher's life were nicely set forth in a letter to the Hawke's Bay Education Board at its laßt meeting. 'My house,' she wrote, 'is almost a lake this morning, so bad that I am going to town to spend a comfortable Sunday. The leakage 1b from the chimney in the kitchen to the centre of the room. Yesterday morn I got wet while cooking breakfast, and last night could not face the same again, bo went out and begged tea.'

The best ' bull * of the royal visit was got cff by the Wellington Post. It oconrred in the report of the royal doings at Rotorua, as under :— ' Rotoraa, Jane 14. — The enn rose brightly over the cloudcapped " western " hills this morning.' There are some nice little gambles in Government lands as well as in other things. An an instance, a successful applicant for a grazing ran down at Oamarn advertised the other day that he bad not ' dropped in for a good thing,' and offered to Bell oat at a premium. It was pretty cool to a9k for a premium for what was not ' a good thing,' bat the offer was promptly accepted by a farmer at a stiff advance, and the original applicant la probably now in quest of another section, with a similar object in view. A mutual improvement class in a certain big suburb had a fanny little farce in one act for a wind-np one night recently. And the beat of it waa it was quite unrehearsed. They had been going in, it seems, for impromptu speeches, and the last on the list of speakers waa a young man who had not had any experience, bnt from whom the class had some expectations. The chairman introduced him. Mr Jones <w)ll now addre'es the meeting,' he said. Mr Joneß took the floor awkwardly, twirled his thumbss in agitation, gave a searching lpok for the door, muttered ' My— er— address— er— Ib Sarrey Hills,' and rushed oat Into the cool night air for refuge. The class reckoned it waa the very beat ' Impromptu ' of that evanlng.

Some people think that tolls ar© done away with, probably because Ministers are alwayß saying that this ib the oaae. Bnt lodging from the Counties' Conference in Wellington it appears that they are mnoh in evidence. Laat week it waa related by a-Hobson delegate that in the Par North the Council had a bother with a settler whose cattle flippity-flopped along a certain road night and morning, and cut it op badly. The Council coaxed and nsed threats, bat the owner jast drove them along as asaal. At last the Conncil pnt np a toll-gate, and the cattle trouble ceased. In fact, as one wag said, it was ' Hobßon'e choice.' It was on the Helenavilie train. Somehow, by mistake, she had entered a smoking car, and not long after a fierce battle waa raging between her and a man. He had lit np and started to smoke, and she objected beoanae she loathed the beastly weed. There was no lack of ammnnition, and the attack threatened to last through the loDg jonrney, till the woman, ever hoping to have the laat word, shrieked : 'If yon were my husband, I would pat poiaon in yonr coffee.' ' And,' replied the man, 'if yon were my wife I would gladly drink It.' With this crnel and victoriona ebot, he left the car, feeling he had ' won the day.' The work of the Counties' Conference, which ia busy at Wellington adding to and taking from, and generally overhauling the Counties Bill, so as to make it shipshape for the Honse, is not bo very dry. Last week someone got np and proposed that funeral processions should be exempt from payment of toll nnder the new Bill. This brought to hig feet a real Emerald Islander from somewhere up North, who exclaimed with all the warmth of his race, 'I do protest. Why, in the country I represent, fnneralß do more damage to our roads ' He got no further for the uproarious laughter of his colleagues. The motion was carried, and funeraU were ' dead headed.' ' To suit the times ' is a good old aiotto, and pays in everything when it's properly carried out. Apropos, a large firm in Pretoria, soon after the British occupation, wished to have reproduced upon some of its advertisements a photograph of its premises, and it so happened that the printer to whom the work waa entrusted had a block which had already been used for a similar purpose in the halcyon days of Oom Paul. The proof waa accordingly prepared, and brought to the head of the firm for approval. ' But,' said the head, with a look of horror, ' the Transvaal flag is flying over the building !' 'Oh, yep, 1 replied the printer, ' when I made that block yon particularly inßtrncted me to see that the Boer flag came into it ; but I can change the flag on the block aB quickly aa you have changed yours on the building.' And the accommodating firm was duly accommodated. this little stcry, which is perfectly true, shows how a city man who had a habit of ' nipping ' in his office was cured by his wife in a strange but simple way. She appeared at breakfast one morning, looking very pale— an obliging chemist having shown her how to work that artfnl dodge. In the middle of the meal she rose, took up a brandy bottle standing near, and coolly toseed off a good stiff tot of the fiery fluid. 'What, in heaven's name, are jou doing ?' exolaimed the horrified husband. ' Oh, nothing much,' waa the careless reply. ' Merely having my morniDg nerve- steadier a little earlier than usual I always have two or three a day — don't you ?' The man was simply paralysed with astonishment, and in the bitterness of his soul he cried out : ■ Great Heavens, Mary ! How can I cure yon of this?' 'By giving np the habit yourself,' was the quiet but firm reply ' Then I'll do it,' Baid the husband. And that morning he went to town without the help of hia ' morning fortifier.' Not a drop of grog has passed his lips since, and there is no happier home in the land than hia. A recent decision by the Gisborne SM. will come as an eye-opener to the butchers, bakers, and other tradesman who print little scare lines on their billheads that ' overdue accounts will be cnarged 10 per cent.' A local firm who had adopted this plan sued for interest at the rate of 10 per cent, on an account which had not been paid by the 10. h of the month on which the goods were delivered. The bill-head was shown and plaintiff gave evidence, and things were looking all right for judgment for the amount, when defendant's connsel quietly got np and submitted that aB the parties had not entered into any contraot for the payment of interest, and that aa the law made it clear that this mast be done, the mere printing of scare lineß waa not enough, and the claim mast fail With which Hia Worship agreed. He said that nnder the circumstances he did not think interest oould be recovered, and gave judgment accordingly. In the caee under notice, defendant's attention had not been drawn to the fine on the billheads that interest would be ohrrged.