THE FRETFUL PORCUPINE

Observer, Volume XXVII, Issue 42, 6 July 1907, Page 16

THE FRETFUL PORCUPINE

IT is the quiet season with the Devonport police. There are no ladies with blackberry baskets to inteicept, and having given up in despair the task of bringing the Takapuna 'buses into some pretence of compliance with the law, the transmarine police are looking for new outlets for their talents. The other night, they found some harmless diversion in tramping heavily through the Esplanade Hotel at the closing hour, taking the names of some estimable and worthy boarders who were playing crib after hours, putting them through an offensive and unnecessary cross - examination, and generally striking terror into the hearts of the hotel management. There was no breach of the law on the part of the boarders, but that was a mere circumstance. It ia nesessary to show the public and the Police Department that the Devonport staff are earning their salaries. Somebody must suffer, where a show of attention to duty is being made, and the hotel is the most helpless victim. It doesn't dare to strike back. i*» f* ••• Be Sir Joe's suggestion to have Lord Mayors, it may not be generally known that more than one local mayor is already titled. Nor does he himself consider the title by any means a courtesy one. To call him Lord with one accord We'd really be delighted ; But then, you see, 'tis plain that he Already is be(k)nighted. Which applies also to the members of more than one borough council.

The inconsistency of the eternal feminine I The ladies of the W.CT.TJ. have prostrated themselves in adoration of Mr Dyer, S.M., for his efforts in the glorious cause of the abolition of barmaids. Mr C. C. Kettle not so very long age made a positive martyr of himself in his efforts to obliterate the ' indecent " picture post cards wb*. is had greatly "pained and shocked" th> W.C.T.U., and none of them had the decency to pass a vote of f !ianke to him. Wherefore, it is now Mr Kettle's, turn to be greatly '' pained and shocked " at the indecency of such ingratitude.

According to the dailies, a Gisborne schoolmaster is complaining that he can't get gh'ls to attend the cookery classes at the technical school. Pity they haven't got the handsome George Giorge or the aristocratic John Pa>ne at Gisborne, then the t-.chnical school building would be all too small to accommodate the multitude of girls who would rush to sea the attraction. Why not let our twe prodigies go to Gisborne for a «rhil«. The parting would be a wrench but selfdenial is a sublime attiibute, and Auckland might sur the loss.

" Kia-ora " may mean "good luck," but the use of the word as a name does not appear to bring much good luck in its train Following closely on the wreck uf the steamer Kia Ora came the sinking during the recent gale of the fishing boat of the same name off Wynyard Pier, and it was in a boat of the same name that Buckeridge, the would-be " round the world " navigator, met his death. After this, frequenters of pubs will be chary of muttering ' Kia-ora " as they raise the convivial glass to their ruby lips, in case they should drop dead or see snakes or sou. ething. Ana romantic damsels who weai greenstone pendants with "Kia-ora" in scribed thereon will p-obably hasten to get the motto alter ju lest a horrible fate should purs-ie them. Which all goes to prove ■ow very litfcle there is in a name.

Dear Observer, —" The Maid of Roaelawn " blushes at your suggestions for her future success, but her modesty forbids her acting on advice given. She is not the name part of an operetta, but of a musical sketch. You were led to believe the former through the publishing of the same by a contemporary, the word operetta being misapplied. You mention the names of two high lights in musical matters, whose engagement would ensure the success of the production. Not wishing to row in too deep a boat for feat of low water, I have doctored the musical production, so as to be able to face the music without fear of the baton. Knowing your readers will be wishing to look at the pictures, I will conclude. Thanking you in anticipation,—Yours, etc., D. C. Ingram. <•» «* «••

Fascinating ad. from the dailies :— WANTED— A Thrifty Man with £100, to set wife and daughter to work at nice little Grocery Store, City; a little fortune whilst father's away at business. Why it should be necessary for " father " to go to business at all while his wife and daughter are piling up a fortune for him in the grocery line the philanthropic advertiser doesn't explain. Probably, "father" will be quite contented to sit and watch the fortune piling up without bothering about business. It will be a soft billet for him.

The sadly overworked police of Devonport are ruminating over the awful possibilities of a campaign against artful and designing cats. From all accounts, more than one resident is working himself up to quite a respectable amount of fury concerning the depredations of burglarious cats among his poultry. How the police are going to deal with the misguided cats is not apparent. You can't serve a summons on a cat, and, even if you could, the chances are that the cat would be quite willing to commit contempt of court by refusing to appear. Besides, first catch your cat. The spectacle of a corpulent policeman wildly chasing a criminal tom-cat o'er hill and dale in Devonport's back yards at the witching hour might prove an entertaining sight for the ribald residents, and might also provide healthy and harmless recreation for the cat, but where would the corpulent policeman come in? Probably a bad second. Perhaps John Fuller might be persuaded to come to the resoue on his bike, but, even so, the odds are in favour of the criminal. Anyway, the Devonport police are too overworked to bother about cats. They are engaged in taking a census of crib-playing guests at the hotels. It's a remarkably thankless taak,

Marvellous extract from shilling shocker now running through the Herald: — "At a single giance, he appraised her dress, her charming features, her shining brown hair, her slender hands, her graceful and supple figure." Any mere man who can appraise all the details of a woman's dress "at a single glance," to say nothing of her " charming features, shining brown hair," etc., is a unique creature, and as such deserves to be immortalised. By -the- way, this shocker is written by a woman, which explains it. The average woman can take in every detail of another woman's dress without appearing to look at her at all. But the most intellectual of mere men couldn't do it.

The minions of the Health Department are, from all accounts, looking wildly for a celestial gentleman who used to keep a shop in Vic-toria-street. John suffered from boils, or corns, or chilblains, or something on his legs, and went to see a chemist on the matter. The chemist referred him to a doctor, and the doctor, being up-to-date, promptly sent for emissaries from the Health Department. The Department grabbed stethoscopes, and knives and saws, and instruments of blood, and careered off to examine the corn on John's knee. Finally, John was informed that he would have to take himself and his corn to the hospital. John "no savee." Who, he inquired, was going to look after his cabbagee and callotee and lettucee i" the proud owner thereof was absent ? The Department, revelling in the thought of the good time they were, going to have operating on John's corns, paid no heed to vegetarian matters, and John, protesting wildly, wa- conveyed to the hospital.

Here he was further examined, and it was decided that ha must be operated on. Therefore John was accommodated with a chair to rest his corns upon, while th - Health Department went away .o prepare for business. That business was never brought off, for when the minions came back, they found that the celestial corn-grower,being apparently disgusted at the wa- events were shaping, had mysteriously vanished. So far, he has not retained and Vic-toria-street knows him no more. Strange how indifferent some people are to the interests of science and motives of philanthropy. Here was the whole Health D.epjitment quite willing to use their axes and saws and things for the assistance of an unlearned Chow, and tbe said Chow is ungrateful enough to vanish without a word of thanks After all, perhaps he's better off where he i$ — wherever he is.

A certain young Auckland damsel who has lately been employed in serving out hot water with a dash of tea in it at a tea rooms not a hundred miles from the Onehunga tram terminus, recently applied in answer to an advertisement by the Stiff-un for waitresses. Waltzing airily into the manager's room, she casually remarked : "Oh, good-day. I see you are advertising for waitt esses. Do you want waitresses or young ladies ?" The manager, who apparently has no time to devote to fine distinctions, withered the fair applicant with a glare that scorched like curry and rice for six on one plate. " I want waitresses," he snorted, emphatically. Then the indignant applicant turned up her nose at an angle of 85 degrees to the magnetic North, and vanished with a sniff that made the diners shiver.

High Commissioner W. P. Reeves was not always the out - and - out Socialist that he was when a member of the Ballance Ministry. Rather the opposite, in fact, on the showing of A. W. Rutherford, M. H.R. Here is Mr Rutherford's account of the Reeves family conversion as told by him to a Canterbury political meeting :—Somewhere away back in the seventies, a syndicate consisting of a number of the leading people in Canterbury, vsas formed for the purpose of cornering land. Amongst this syndicate was the late Hon. W. Reeves, then managing director of the Lyttelton Times Company. They borrowed a vast sum iroin the richest man in Canterbury, and supplemented this from their own resources.

Their idea was to hold for a rise. Before the rise took place, wheat fell below 2s a bushel, and oats to less than Is. The syndicate were on the rocks — they couldn't sell, and interest, and compound at that, was accumulating. Disaster loomed in the near future. Some of the syndicate made over their properties to their respective wives. The Hon. Mr Reeves became a Socialist, as did his son, the Hon. W. P. Reeves, as a direct result of a failure to become millionaires.

Strict Sabbatarians have recently been eyeing the Masonic fraternity with grim disapproval. This is by reason of the fact that the Herald lately made the awful announcement that the installation of Grand Master Charlie Blomtield, of Lodge Ara, took place on Sunday evening. As a matter of fact, this is only a bit of unconscious humour on the part of the Herald. The Star, which was first in the field with the account of the installation, stated that it took place on St. John's Eve. This, to the average heathen Individual, was somewhat vague. The Herald, however, revelling in the odour of sanctity, and knowing therefore that St. John's Day was Monday, came to the conclusion that St. John's live was Sunday. That St. John's Day happened to fall on Tuesday was the fault of St. John, not of the Herald. Therefore, Bros. Charlie Blomtield and Frank Whitaker, and E. R. Piggott and all their jainions, are branded as irreclaimable heathens.

The prominent local business man who lately sent his wife or* a holiday to Sydney and then inh. ailed the servant girl in her place i& still an unrepentant sinner. Uniortunately for the serenity of his bliss, however, the lawful wife of his bosom, contrary to h's stern decree, returned to Auckland and now lives in furnished rooms in the suburbs, supporting herself and three child: en on a pittance grudgingly doled out to her by her lord and master. Recently, the too amorous individual inserted in the " Star " a laconic notice that he would not ba responsible for any debts incurred in his name without his written authority. Thus, in a despicably low way, did he add insult to injury. Practically — although not nominally — this person is the head of a large business* in town, and, as he is in the habit of driving about in an equipage and pair, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he can afford to make far better provision for his wife and young family than he is at present dcing. Probably in the very near future he will find that he has to do so.

A gentleman, who has been enjoying His Majesty's hospitality at Waiotapu camp, was recently discharged. Before leaving, however, he managed to perpetrate another crime, as thus : — I hate the sight of prison walls, I hate the sound of bells, I hate to hear the warders call The number of the cells. So here's to me that now is free, I once was prison bound, My time's expired, ' I'm not required, So here's good luck all round. Evidently, the luxury of Waiotapu is conducive to poetry. But if the Hon. James McGowan is going to reform convicts by making them into poets — well, their last state will be woree than their first. What about applying the Habitual Criminals Act? Will some philanthropic person with a taste for statistics kindly calculate how many secretaries the V.M.C.A. rejoiceth in ? At present, a Swiss individual named Lieut. -Colonel Fermand, described as " World's Secretary," is stumping this favoured land, where only M. H.R.s are vile. A short while ago, Lyman L. Pierce, " organising secretary," toddled over from Yankeelaad and told us of our sins. A bad lot we are, too, according to Christian young man Pierce. As for general secretaries, and corresponding secretaries, and minute secretaries, their name is legion. Anyway

it is to be hoped that World's Secretary Christian Young Man Lieut. - Colonel Charles Fermand will let us down lightly. Of course, we can never be like him, but we'll be as like him as we're able to be.

The discussion over the Land Bill and its ramifications is getting on the nerves of some of our newspaper editors. Nothing else will account for the brilliant piece of mixed metaphor which one of them perpetrated the other day in declaring that " Mr McNab's ewe lamb may, after all, survive parturition and grow into a comparatively harmless manhood." Of course, be may be right, but, if so, that manly ewe should be secured as the nucleus of a museum of political monstrosities.

One of our M.H.R.'s, who takes an interest in racing, experienced a deadly insulb the other day. Just prior to the conclusion of the day's programme, he was standing in the gentlemen's cloakroom, musing, presumably, over the frailty of human nature, when a gentleman with a bucolic cast of countenance sidled bashfully up and thrust a shilling into the M.H.R.'s hand, with the whispered injunction to "take a drink out of that, my man." The outraged M.H.R. glared at the shilling, and then transfixed the country cousin with a withering stare. " Sir!" he shouted, " What the— what the deuce do you mean, sir, by this insult ?" The rustic one trembled. "Beg pardon, boss," he replied, "but ain't you the cloakroom attendant?" And, as that M.H.R. 'a countenance turned a deep purple hue, the abashed country cousin stole quietly away and hid behind the nearest beer barrel.

A letired local draper did a bit of aerial gymnastics the other day which filled the onlookers with horror and other things. The said retired draper is the owner of a shop in Queen-street, and in the shop next door to his, extensile alterations were in progress. The rag-man, being endowed with a careful disposition, went along to see that no damage was being done to his premises. In the course of his investigations, he procured a ladder and proceeded to mount to the roof.

Half-way up the ladder, the thought struck him that it was a terrible thing to be thus hovering between heaven and earth, and he prepared to descend hurriedly. However, a crowd of spectators which had gathered whooped the valiant rag-man on to glory or the grave. Stimulated by the encouragement, the climber boldly shut bis eyes, breathed a prayer, and succeeded in reaching the roof. Then he suddenly discovered that he was higher in the world than was exactly convenient, and it took the united persuasions of all the ribald spectators to induce him to start on his earthward journey. The last few rungs of that ladder were negotiated at a pace that the most intrepid fireman would hare envied.