THE FRETFUL PORCUPINE

Observer, Volume XL, Issue 11, 15 November 1919, Page 20

THE FRETFUL PORCUPINE

MAY GIBBS, an Australian artist, who happens to be strikingly original —although somehow, one classifies her with Alice Cowham and some others —has put out a delightful little book, "Boronia Babies," through which the wee ones revel in their little pink skins, free of any garments but flowers and leaves. * * * The "brown boronia" is as near being the Australian National flower as need be, and one remembers quite well, when Goodge (that fine Australian) referred to kauris at Westport, and New Zealanders shrieked at his ignorance, Jimmy Edmonds of the "Bulletin" asking New Zealanders to nominate' the native habitat of the brown boronia. * • • May Gibbs has produced some of the most delightful "brdwn boronia babies" in her booklet, quaint, beautiful, unique, with nfce little .thirty word yarns opposite. You can delight your own babies and yourself with this exquisite Christmas booklet. And anyhow Maythanks so much for "Shadows" — Plenty of New Zealanders have got the little lady—only she's standing on a spray of yellow kowhai. Q> « ® "Kitty" writes: Not being a wowser, I rejoiced greatly last Sunday to see a number of highly respectable Auckland gentlemen playing bowls. It reminded me that . in more ancient times harmless amusement oji the Sabbath was regarded as a crime. In 1654 some bowlers at Shrewsbury were found guilty of "kissing Kitty" on the Sabbath. As

penalty the Church ordered that these miscreants should "adorn and repair their chapel, at their own expense, as a commutation." • •' • As an offset to this, however, it is interesting to recall that both Calvin and Knox played bowls on Sunday afternoons! To add to this ancient record, I have seen a reverend gentleman who preaches a good sermon "playing a good bowl" (with a handle on it) before divine service. $ 0 $ -' "Juvenis" writes: I see you occasionally speak a piece for the young man in New Zealand, and object to the country being run by octogenarians. In the Old Country there has been inaugurated "A I*eague / of Youth," which is trying to instil into the young and clever some confidence in their own ability. One of the paragraphs in the constitution of the League tickled me, "Above all, do not believe that a grey head or a bald one is the only passport to fame and a big salary." • • * Again: "In common decency the chap with the fat job ought to get out of it before he is sixty. There are few fat jobs, done by sexagenarians that could not be done much better by young men of thirty." In short, it seems necessary for the old 'uns to "get off the grass" and play bowls, or do something that doesn't interfere with the progress of the nations. The old man doesn't always gain experience. He more often grows barnacles. ' And it is a thing the People ought to think about when they are electing men to run this young country which wants, above everything, Young Men. &> ■ 9> 9> The number of war jokes is beyond computation. But it's certain that the troops of every Ally contributed humour, characteristic of their particular nation. Tommy's humour differs from the Australian, and the Aussie's from our own Digger's. But the Yank's is humour apart. When thoy first got over there they were anxious to fraternise with their Allies—but they didn't always know how to go about it.

Here's an example: A Yank was trying to get pals with a Tommy whose views of life turned out to be somewhat rigid. ''Have a cigarette?" says Yank. ''Don't smoke cigarettes," replied Tommy. "Then have a fill of tobacco," offered Sammy. "Don't smoke a pipe either," rebuffed the Britisher. "Well, what about a chew of tobacco?" "Don't chew tobacco," was the answer. Nothing nonplussed, the Yank offered a piece of chewing gum. "No, thank you, ,, smilingly refused the Tommy; "we haven't got that habit in Europe." This time the Yank was flabbergasted, and as soon as he got his breath he said, "Well, what in h do you do with your mouth?" $ &> &> The Prohibitionist crowd perpetrated a beautiful joke the other day— not purposely, of course. They can't be funny if they try. However, it happened over the posting of the "Why Should You Pay £10,000,----000?" placards. The sticker was given instructions to post one facing one direction and another facing at right angles. And he got quite tied up in the doing of it. He got one up, but the other? Then he spied a nice hoarding, not a thing oh it. Just the very spot he wanted. So up went the "Why Should You Pay £10,000,000?" and Mr. Sticker took himself away, no doubt delighted to have done his job so well. • " • But it was the wrong hoarding. Moreover, it was not yet licensed for posting purposes. Consequently, the City Council, with an eye to the City revenue, demanded of the owner of the stand the why and the wherefore of posting up placards without being duly licensed so to do, etc. Mr. Owner was astounded. Placard —he knew of' no placard— how, when, where, why, etc?" Of course, investigation followed. Sure enough, there was the placard:— "Why Should You Pay £10,000,----000?" , And even the City Council officials must have laughed for once. You see, the owner of that hoarding was Jack EndeanJ

Ella "Wheeler "Willcox is dead, and it is noticed that she is dismissed locally by a reference to the fact that '"she wrote poems of a sentimental order." As a matter of tact, Ella was a writer with a hard punch, and an astute and clever journalist. She probably never left oil" writing except to go to bed, for she wrote>reams and reams of verse, articles, books, and advertisements. Her ''Poems of Passion," "Poems of Power," and so on, are not going to live, of course, but she has left at least one slab of verse that is universally known: — Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the poor old earth has need of your mirth ; It has trouble enough of its own. ■ • * That's not sentiment. It's as hard a fact as ever old gradgrind ground out. She had the sentimental attribute of being able to make money by selling her brainware. A New Zealander who visited her in her home at Newhaven (Conn., United States, America), said that she had a horn©, of great beauty and charm, but that she toiled ceaselessly at her typewriter in a dingy little office littered with dusty papers, with no companions but a moulting parrot and a. blear-eyed cocker spaniel; She wouldn't leave off writing even to receive a cheque. ss> $• ® "Chesterfield Junior" writes: We want a society in New Zealand to teach "Manners for Men." I am reminded of this by seeing a New Zealand Mayor shake hands, with his gloves on, with the most distinguished visitor we - have had since the King was here. He let the distinguished visitor land by himself and wander up to the place of jaw, and then—then he shook hands with gloves on! Equally frightful laches are common to public men. To most men the decency of manner is instinctive, but you have to teach New Zealand public men as if they were in the primer classes.

Dear Mr. Editor,—l would very much lite to bring under the notice of your readers an uplift organisation known as Waikaremoana. It was first "fornwJd by a band of anglers, surveyors, and tourists, who camp frequently on the shores of Lake Waikaremoana, hence the name. These men spent happy evenings round one huge camp fire in debating great subjects of world importance. They had already tried nap. poker, yarn (indifferent), and whisky, but in these things something was lacking—there was no food for the soul. So they banished them and used great quantities of God Almighty's air in orating (the greatest art in God Almighty's universe, sir) on helpful, soul-«nnobling topics, and just occasionally was a fish yarn told to provide variety.

During the last session of Waikaremoana the members were horrified at the accounts of frequent lynchings of negroes in the Land of the Free. Having lived on most amicable • terms with the Maoris, whose lives they valued as highly as a white man's, and whose rights of trial and justice had always been upheld, Waikaremoana decided to embark on a mission to the United States of America.

By the greatest orators who will make the trip, Waikaremoana will preach the gospel of law <and order. It will uphold the black man's rights to be punished by law, and not to be murdered by a mob. And after it has talked the Americans into a right state of mind on the subject of murder it will lead an oratorical campaign against things as they are on Barbary Coast, San Francisco. For the sake of variety and entertainment a concert party will go along. All this will be done for Darkest America at so much per head and a financial guarantee, and any profits will be used to extend the movement to Mexico and Lapland. 0 &> © Modest Australians who have done England the honour of permitting it to gaze on supermen, evidently regard themselves as a race apart. A modest Australian writes of the English: These people are not really very "smart." They are very ignorant, and simple to childishness in many things. Praise America and they fall straight away. They are intensely patriotic, not to their Government or President, but to their flag. They worship their flag. If Australians were only as fond of Australia! But Australians have been taught from the start that nothing can be any good unless it is English, and comes from England. Our press is to blame, together with a small body of Jingoes in public life. The spirit of pat-

riotiam has been crushed in favour of England, till the present Australian thinks he belongs to Sussex, Ayrshire, or Wales. . We are not a race of people, but a queer breed, smart, witty, good-natured, ana flash. There were only three Australians, on the boat coming over. Yet everyone flocked around them for their company. * • • By the way, it is useful to hear a modest and smart Australian talking about the "President of England!" ® 6s> ® The Government encouragement of progress in North Auckland can % be judged from the fact stated by a recent northern deputation to the Railway Department. A member of the deputation pointed out that a traveller took twelve hours to go from Dargaville to Auckland to-day which was exactly the time it took for the same journey thirty years ago. Wβ are the Winterless North. Preserve us from being called the Stationary North! says the Whangarei u Advocate." ® ■ ■ @ © Occasionally still the Pure Food and Drugs People pull up a "milkie" or two, and ask him through the mouths of the police whether he has been watering his milk, and, if so, why. A pleasant, well-spoken young fellow drives a milk float round part of suburbia, and he dropped a hint that is guaranteed to put any housewife wise if milkie has been selling water to her as well as milk. The hint is this: Get a steel knitting needle arid dip it in the milk. If there has been any dilution at all it won't be exactly milk that will drip off the needle when it is taken out again. • ® © $ Social distinctions vanish when men meet at a common table to eat lunch. Among perhaps two hundred people, mostly trying to bolt a snack and get away with all haste, there are big commercial guns, bank clerks, insurance men, ordinary clerks, an editor or two, several newspapermen, land agents, lawyers, churchmen, and goodness knows what not. One table is taken by the editor of a paper with his associate and the leader writer, and a dealer in land sits in the fourth chair. • * * At the next, -with back to him, is a man known as a subtle lawyer, and the rest of the table is occupied by three greybeards, the one director of a big enterprise, another the manager of a fat business, and the third a silent, tactful, smiling, confidential secretary. There are two parsons over in the corner,

and as they rise and go forth one of the vacant chairs is taken by a plain-clothes constable and the other by a gentleman who soon shifts to talk cricket with a newcomer. Then an M.P. comes in and sits with his son, while the Official Assignee is one of another impromptu party, with an accountant tremendously interested in League football on his right, and a clerk thinking of his next Sunday watching the girls at Milford on his left. Truiy, the classes assembled in the tea-rooms are infinite. Gg> &> ® Armistice, eleven o'clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month provided a strangely emotional two minutes on Tuesday. A sound during that two minutes of Empire silence seemed like a profanation, and actually where the silence was broken one would hear a shocked "Sh-h-h-l" Noticeable that in large numbers of cases' men stood to attention with their hats off, rigid for the two minutes. Armistice Day in Auckland was a day of great beauty— warm and blue, the air so clear that the signal gun that proclaimed eleven o'clock might be heard for many miles. This universal act of homage is a new thing in Imperial discipline, and its sentimental value is beyond estimate. ® & ss> Paddy 08. writes: J Tis thrue the thraps is being tapped on the head to the glory of God and the good, lielth of Home Rule in Ireland, and if you don't belave that people who can kill the constabulary is fit to rule themselves, bedad just listen at this!— , * * An Irishman named Wall was once Prime Minister of Spain 5 the O'Donnells were dukes of Tetuan; an O'Reilly once governed Cadiz; on three separate occasions an Irishman was Spanish Ambassador in London; yet another shoot from the <mld sod, one Kavanagh, was Governor of Prague, while Vienna once had an Irish field-marshal; a scion

of the O'Briens changed his name to Obruttslioff, and ro&e to be a bigwig on the Russian Government years ago.

It remfadk ime of a celebrated story of the American-Irish candidate for election to Congress. He was after the Irish vote. On the platform he yelled, "Who governe this country?" and the answer came, "The Irish!" And again, 'Who builds our railroads?" and the yell went up, "The Irish!" And yet again, "Who fills our gaols —but before the startled crowd had got to "The I " a half brick took him in the waistcoat, and an Irish undertaker buried him. jg> -® ® "Herr Sluck" writes: Along a certain street a day or so ago. a brewer's cart went, and it pulled up while the man climbed to the top of a stack of boxes and heaved down a case of two-dozen lager beer. Hβ slipped, and both he and the. case hit the pavement. Every bottle was broken. Quickly, the usual congregation of rubber-necks began to occur, but when those people looked down upon the ruins from which driblets of beer still trickled into the gutter, no words could reveal their feelings. * * • Never have I seen such commisseration and regret so profoundly expressed upon the human countenance. They looked at the breakage with dulled eyes, as if life held no more for themj then, with a most astounding unanimity, there c* ,316 a great sigh as each man wiped a hand back across a.dry mouth. A cruel waste " began someone at my elbow. But I was going. It was too awful. It cost me sevenpence to still the beating of my heart. # &■ ® Vivian H. Potter, candidate for Roskill says, we should discountenance the actions of all those who endeavour to undermine .Constitutional authority-