BY THE WAY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 365, 5 March 1932, Page 9

BY THE WAY.

Some Collections and Reflections. (By ONE OF THE BOYS.) Bridge Note. Digging the garden of old man Jones We came upon some human bones. We were puzzled at first till someone said: “ Poor thing, and she hasn’t long been dead. “ ’Twas a cousin of his, as I understand, “ Who revoked three times in a single hand.” The latest type of motor-horn, we are told, reproduces the notes of a harp. This is a really subtle method of warning pedestrians to get out of the way. Golf was invented by the Dutch, claimed by the Scots,, played by the English and is won by the Americans. A London paper denies the rumour that, following their victories over Cambridge at Rugby, association and cross country running, the authorities have decided to close down Oxford University on the ground that miracles don’t happen twice. A surgeon was walking round a hospital ward with a number of students in tow. While speaking to one patient he said suddenly to the man, hoping to impress the students with his erudition : “ Hello, there are traces of a very neat operation just under your left eye. Who perfomed that?” The invalid answered: “ Well, I dunno ’is name, sir, but it ’appened in a pub., and they told me afterwards he was a professional pug.”

Pat managed to get a job of work in his native country and in a few weeks he also got his brother Mike taken on. A week or so later he approached the foreman and asked if there was a job for his father. ‘‘ls he shtrong?” asked the foreman. “ Shure, sor, he’s as shtrong as me and me brother Mike.” “ Well, now, that’s grand, that is. You and your brother Mike can take the sack to-night, and your feyther can shtart to-morrow.”

The son of a butcher (not by any means in Christphurch) had great difficulty in dealing with fractions in his arithmetic lessons.

“ Now, let us suppose,” said the teacher, “ that a customer came to your father to buy five pounds of meat, and that your father had only four in the shop to sell. What would he do?”

“ Keep his hand on the meat while he was weighing it!” was the youngster’s reply. x x *

Lady of the House: “ I should think you -would be ashamed to beg in this neighbourhood.” Tramp: “ Don’t apologise for it, madame. I’ve seen worse.”

Little Boy: ‘‘Mother, is it true that an apple a day keeps the doctor away?”

Mother: “Yes. Why?” Little Boy: “In that case I’m all right for a fortnight.”

It was a case of trespassing, heard in a West Coast police Court. “ What was the accused actually doing?” questioned the Magistrate to the complaining farmer. “ lie was treading on my corn,” was the reply.

“ Dear me,” explaimed the Magistrate, “ a very painful trespass; 15s and costs.”

“ Why, these are not the shoes I ordered,” exclaimed the lady of the house in tones of vexation. “ They are expensive footgear; I couldn't afford to buy them.” “ Oh, I beg your pardon, madam,” said the messenger, respectfully, “ but you’ve opened the wrong parcel. This one is yours. The other was ordered by the cook!”

“So they will abolish compulsory arbitration,” I said to Ilam last night. “They will,” Ham replied. “The sacred rights of liberty are going to be preserved. The right of the employer to employ whom he pleases, pay what he likes and work ’em what hours he likes. It is a glorious thing is liberty. There are too many laws, too many restrictions on the individual. When I have a big stick and the other man is smaller than I am, I am an individualist.”

“ Then you believe we should do away with the Arbitration Court?” I asked.

“Yes,” Ham replied. “And at the same time we may as well go the whole hog and do away with the police and other courts of justice and fight out all our disputes with clubs as they did in the Cave Age.”