A MODEST REQUEST.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 6113, 15 December 1898, Page 4

A MODEST REQUEST.

[TO THE KMTOB.I Sir,--1 shall bo obliged by yonr pinning mo ou your sin it nan leaderwriter. In in settled in llio neighborhood, nnd Imvo leisure tirao in tlio ovetiings while my husband docs llio housework nnd attends to tlio boots, You will porccivo from the specimen leader ienclose tlml I etui turn out a finished nrliolo, and Unit 1 urn no literary buck, Yon will observe tlmt I step off rnthor ishowily at starting, but soon settle down in a lively trot of twelvo slips nn honr.-l urn, 010., ilncosA Moiimx. December 12th, 18P8. CAUDA DESINIT IN I'ISCEM.

Our ago is remarkable, amongst other ovils, for blights of various and deadly sorts. Itia not tlio vegetnblo Kingdom nlono that suiters, There are two very distinctive social pests; tlio tirst we will call scribemli cacoithes, or, the itch for writing (this was known to King Solomon), tlio second is' outemrfkmaukcis .kitophrcamlMhu (this is its short title), which simply means "thou hnsl nothing lo draw with, and the ivoll isdeop": it implies conversational auwmia, bloodlessness, want of tone and strength: this was known iu Samaria J9UO years ago. It has become difficult to choose names for | old friends wilh new faces, because all the most eligible words of six feet mill upwards Imvo been already appropiialed by naturalists mid botanists. We forget who it was that said: no ono can comprolicnd how utterly uneducated it is possible i to be, who has not lived chiefly, or entiroly, with the educated classes. | However, wo do not intend lo be serious to-day, but merely to laugh at a. few ''sports" amongst the fruits and flowers of speech—a few of the lighter and more harmless manifestations of nn ill-habit ol tulkiug-leaying the iteh for ivriliiiij unsprayed for the present. ilimy mistakes and peculiarities arc amusing, mid soino are annoying. Eccentricities of spelling we may consider at anutlier time, but we may mention in passing, that we knew a man a year or two ago who had been (as he fancied) educated in London. Ho spelt socks "sox." He is no longer on our visiting list, ami our youngest son will not be sent to the same school. This same individual slipped into our room one dny, and, willinbow which would not have disgraced a policeman with a double truss, extended a friendly hand, with a'' comment pork; tons'!" under the impression that ho was speaking French. It is on record thai at school lie gave "w« r-horse "na the meaning of hors-de-wmbat. Indeed, ho fancies to this day that French .is rather what lie calls his "forty." One more story occurs to us hero of an old yalet who had peculiar notions about spelling; one day when the old gentleman, his master, was looking over his servant's accounts, ho saw that his valet had spelt " night" "nit": he said "You are in the latest fashion with your phonetic spoiling, Johnson; most people spell "night" with a gh before the t, but the greatest scholars now spell it as you do." "So 1 suppose. Sir," said Johnson j " I've see it with a" gh,' 1 but I've no ways give in to that myself," The old gentleman had on a previous occasion asked him-."What is the cause of the (ides, Johnson ?" ■' Well, sir, nobody rightly knows. Many gives their opinion, but if 1 was to give mine, it 'ud bo different,"

Wo recall an instance of presence of mind iu conversation: a geullemau who had given a dinner-party was sitting at dessert, with his wife and the guests, during an awful thunderstorm, lu a blinding Hash of ligbtuiug the glasses on the table wero shivered by tlio electric lluid, mid tlio lady was struck and instantly reduced to a heap of blackened ashes, The busbaud, having viewed the remains (as a coroner's jury does) quietly rang the bell for the butler, and said: ''John, bring fresh glasses and sweep away your mistress." Not infrequently, in conversation, one meets wilh a man who is an Alexander Selkirk without the solitude; hois an egotist, and he sutlers his private "I" lo be too much iu the private eye, Slips of the tongue are often amusing, a tut her said to liis son : "When 1 was your age, my father would not allow me to go out al night," '.' Yuu had a deuce of a taiher, you had," replied the young scamp. The lather shoaled wilh rage; "1 had a confounded sight belter one that you have you Imvo, youyoungraseal." Ouerarelymeels a tlioioughly well-road man. There was one lo the west of the United Stales whoso hair was so red, thai when ho went out before daylight, ihe cocks began lo crow, thinking limit Ihe suu had risen. We may call him a well-red man who can get a rise out of the suu,

Mothers are very partial, Many of iliem think their sous so bright lhat they only look at them through

smoked glass. Wo suy to parents: —llemember this: if llio head is a I block, it is useless to try smiling it. IVo had n friend who at one time used a stono jar for a pillow, and stuffed it with straw to make it more comfortable; but it never became as soft as his head. At this time of the your wojliciii' the obsolete pi ucleritc » of the verb " to shoar" constantly used. "Wo 'shoio' no lambs last year." " 1 ' shoio' a wet Lincoln ■ ewe-in two minutes." This reminds ono what a puzzle our language is : the last remark may be perfectly , true, and yet if the ewe had been I wet she would not have been shoru, Talking of " shore" makes one wonder how ut Frenchman would 1 understand the story of the young ladyut Long Branch, U.S.A., who took a piece of soap into tho water whon bathing, so that, in tlio event of the under-low being too strong for her, she might wash herself ashore. (Fear's people pinilcd this joke, I believe). Some persons whon they have made an assertion which meets with a dubious reception, are apt to.adduco queer evidence to support their statement; "You say these are pure canaries," asked a young lady, " Yes, Miss," said the bird-dealer," i raised them birds myself from canary sm<l." Punctuation is sometimes faulty in speaking, as. well as in writing; a witness said, "The person 1 saw was a man with one eyo named Monocle." "And what was the name of tlio other eye ?'' asked the couusel. Sometimes in haste (ho breathless speaker fails iu elegance.; an Irish member of a vestry, who was notorious for arriving late, once came punctually to time. "I'm lirst at last," ho shouted, " I always was behind before." Nothing can be moro perfect than Sir Boyle ltoche's bull: " It would be better, Mr Speaker, to give up not only ut part, but, if necessary, even the whole of our constitution, to preservo the remainder." We remember an Irish curate at St. Martin's, Birmingham, who read the story of tlio Old Prophet of Bethel, iu I, Kings, ch,, 13, thus:— " He said unto his sons, saddle mo the ass, And they saddled him, the ass!" with ut tremeudous emphasis on him, nnd a distinet note of scorn after tlio final "ass," Many men have pet phrases which are amusing until they become I wearisome, In nine cases out of ten, if you ask a Scotchman for an opinion, he answers "Can't say, I'm sure"; the polito term for this

habitis "caution," tlio vulgar term is different. People sometimes nso words very unexpectedly; a charming young Imly declared in our hearing the other day thatsho didn't liko a design for an embroidered monogram, because it was so " prismatical": perhaps "prim," or "pariInimical," was tlio word intended. "Oh! bo's ii teiror"isa very common and highly objectionable expression; if used at all, the pronoun should be feminine. "He's a radical" seems generally to mean, in Now Zealand, a youth who lakes I unusual delight in breaking tlio Ten Coinmaiidnienls, with an especial skill, acquired by practice from infancy, iu fracturing tlio lifth. These are the men who, for the prospective pleasure of breaking it, Imvo got the teetotallers to add an Eleventh Commandment, filched from the Koran, lo tlio Decalogue. I Many eccentricities of speech 'are lo he traced lo tlio fashions of the day, just as the high liiiiid-slmko was, or that intensely idiotic and ' nasty habit of cramming a ciumpled pocket-hand-kerchief up the sleeve of a dress-coot, lleally, these notions are aslliulibras said :

•Sutliailiil;clo(lt;iiii;.sinalicuil That's tulie let iniliuuishiil."

Many can never get oyer the "1" or "nie'Millicully: how often one hoars such sentences as: "The Uolonel drove Maud and I back." Good repartees are very amusing—but space fails. Father O'Leary told tlio l'rolestaiitUi.shopofCloyuu, "Much as you may dislike purgatory, you may gu further and fare worse." Humour is out of place in the pulpit; hut Dr. Outline began a sermon by saying thai—" God on one occasion used an «.ss lo preach lo a sinner, but that Ho was not in the way of using asses when He could get belter instiiiiiicnls." Better instruments, unhappily aie not always forthcoming. As our inermaiden motto indicated we end with a decidedly fishy tail.