GOOD STORIES FROM THE MAGAZINES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6514, 17 June 1899, Page 3

GOOD STORIES FROM THE MAGAZINES.

"Cornhill" for March contains the following anecdotes of an amusing turn : — CAPTAIN AND MIDSHIPMITE. , Lieutenant Stuart Gordon, R.N., serves up some piquant varieties of " Sea Sauce." Here is one story out of many: — It was in Malta, Harbour on a sultry day that a four-foot-eight midshipman came to join his first sea-going, ship. Having duly reported himself to the captain — an' officer of some six feet two inches — the latter, literally looking down upon the boy, said *. " Well, youngster, so you've come to join, eh " " Yes, if you please, sir," meekly responded the midshipman. " What is it — same old yarn, sent the fool of the family to sea — eh?" " No, sir," ingenuously replied the youngster ; "oh, no, things have altered since youi*- time; sir."" '" '. "Go away !" roared the captain, and the middy flew 'below, as fast as his little legs could carry him. IN STRAITS FOB. WANT OF "COPY." Mr Michael MacDonagh lights up " the bye-ways of journalism " with many a comic tale of the hard-pressed penny-a-liner. Here is one*. — . There is a grisly story of a "liner" who had not had material for a paragraph forti weeks. People persisted in not murdering anyone; they would not even commit suicide or drop down dead; fires would not burst out; and the burglar and pickpocket had evidently temporarily given up business. He lived in a cheap suburb, and one afternoon was walking dolefully in his scrap of back garden, smoking his pipe, and racking his brains to find out where the next week's dinners for his wife and children were to come from, when he suddenly heard screams proceeding from adjoining premises. He dropped his pipe and, rushed out, but soon returned. " Mary ! Mary ! "he cried to his long-suffering partner, " fetch my hat. Thank God! a woman a few doors up has cut her three children's throats, and we shall have a good dinner on Sunday !" A double murder will pay his quarter's rent; and a romantic suicide in high life will give hhn a pleasant holiday. A SOLO DT7EI.LO AND A LUCK.). MISS. In "Cassell's" Mr T. A. Cook recounts several notable duelling incidents, and winds up with this : — The disputants, in one of the most remarkable of recent American duels, agreed j that they would decide by toss of the coin j which was to Wow his own brains out. This j was a return to the idea of Providential in- \ tervention in such matters which had no i excuse. I remember hearing bow it resulted j in one instance. The fatal preliminaries had been solemnly completed by the two principals in the presence of their seconds, j The unfortunate man, against whom the lot had decided, said farewell to his friends, and withdrew into another room with a loaded-pistol in his hand. The others waited j in ; suspense. A report rang out ; a>nd as the j agitated paity were on- the point of making their way out to pick up the remains of the dead man, he burst into the room, still holding tbe smoking weapon-, with the joy- j fu! expression— < " Wai, I guess I've missed myself !" THE HUMOUBS OF THE NBGTJS. Vicomte de Poncins, writing in the " Nineteenth Century " on " The Menelik Myth," endeavours to explode it by telling his experiences of the Abyssinian King. He says': — ■ ' ■ y When the Negus talks, his glamce is alert and his sayings often amusing. I have heard him tell the famous .taie .of the elephant which was so large that he had two little elephants to help him to carry his tusks. He taught me, too, how the Abyssinians kill the panther; you dig a hole in the ground and get into it with a goat, closing the mouth of the hole with your shield. The bleating of the goat attracts the panther, which scratches at the shield in order to get at its prey. But you hold the shield fast and the pantljei* dies incontinently of rage! On another occasion .he renmrked: . . "Joshua is said . to". haye stopped the sun. That can't be true, and besides no one couDd prove it, as in his day they had no watches. .Itis-much more likely that he was bored," and thought the time passed so slowly that the sim must have stopped.'-' ... The Negus likes to be able to say that' he has stamps and a coinage with his effigy upon them, a. telephone,, a postal service, . and a railway which is going to comneqt him with the coast. It is true that the stamps are sold .only to philatelists upon the steamers at Jibuti, that the coinage is not. current, that the telephone wires serve merely as perches for birds, that the postal service consists of an indiarrubber stamp of which the holder, an - enfranchised slave called Gabriel, is so proud that he has had ■ himself baptised Minister of Posts and Telegraphs ori the strength of it, and that the railway is not yet completed: No matter; ' 'Menelik is flattered.' y