LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6514, 17 June 1899, Page 2

LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES.

IT IS THE UNEXPECTED THAT HAPPENS. The vicissitudes which beset mankind are sometimes strange, everi beyond the wildest flights of imagination; and hardly a day passes without the world being offered examples of the ironies of rate. At Deveriter, Holland, in the province of Overyssel, there dwells Dr Cox, a iiterary man, who recently brought out . a pamphlet advocating complete equality between men and women. His house has just bee broken into, and the burglars were traced and arrested; they turned out to be two young, girls! •■--...-■■, Lord Delamere recently returned from big game hunting in Africa, where he Went through hairbreadth escapes without a scratch. Quite lately, however, fate turned its attention towards him. While his Lordship was' out hunting, his horse, in endeavouring, to jump a fence stumbled, and threw tbe rider, injuring his back and neck. Was it not the height of irony that his Lordship should face ; all the dangers and terroi-3 of wild life in the bush and then get hurt in the prosaic manner here chronicled 1 It reminds one of a certain general, a few years back, who had just been through a severe campaign free of harm. The third day after his return to London he was about to cross the street when he missed his footing as he stepped from the pavement, slipped and broke his leg, the climax being- that he died. The accident to the Scotch express some while back afforded a good specimen of the . little ironies of life:' > A young. lady, hasten- |, ing'hometvardby the express to the funeral of her father, was herself one of the killed •■ in the train smash. So that, instead^of be- j ing a mourner of her parent, she became j an' occupant of the same tomb" at the same time. ' - . y In the museum a* Capetown is shown an I. old-fashioned high-backed wooden chair, ;in connection with which there is a weird story. It is related that the chair is the | one in which the Dutch Governor, de Noorde, ' was found sitting dead a few moments after the execution of a soldier whom he had sentenced to be hanged, and who, on his doom being pronounced solemnly called upon his conderiiner to accompany him to " the throne of €&c • Supreme Judge." ' Sir Robert Meade, late Colonial Perma-ment.Under-Secretary, had married twice, and both wives died suddenly. Then Sir. Robert fell, and broke one of his legs while getting .into an omnibus in Whitehall. His daughter nursed him "back to a' measure of strength, and then' he resigned his' official post, which was almost imriiediately •followed by the , death of his dloughter.. This was the last drop in his cup of affliction, tod he himself ' died shortly afterwards. i 3fot long' since a stowaway: was found • dead tinder the main hatch of one of the (

Nationa line of steamers. . He had concealed himseli before the steamer left Liverpool, and was suffocated. In the ' o *tV JfMJ ' <2t . ™* '«™i'a Ijov's story, ! entitled "Doomed on the Deep."