You Don’t Say So!

Fair Play, Volume II, Issue 27, 1 November 1894, Page 4

You Don’t Say So!

Nearly every daily paper in the Colony made a recent cablegram read :—“ Livadia in Greece.”- Livadia is the summer residence of the Czar in the Crimea.

The new Bishop of Wellington is to get <£looo a year, and this whilst some of the country parsons, who have to ride long distances, and have the hardest of hard work to do, get only a bare subsistence.

The irrepressible Fish is a candidate for the Dunedin Mayoralty again. “ Bobs up serenely,” like the man in Olivette. Fish has more go in him now-a-days tnan George Fisher. When will our George do his rebound ?

Captain A. B. C. D. E. F. Campbell-Preston—we don’t remember his correct initials, but the above are some of them—is reported to bethe best man in the “ Guvmentouse ” company at the Highland Fling.

Verbatim copy of a letter from a newly-appointed New South Wales J.P. to the local (South Coast) Police Magistrate: —“ Deer Sur, —I rite to let you know that I ave made aj p and it will give me grate pleesure to cohabit with you on the Binch.”

Now that Parliament is prorogued, everybody seems to agree that the new members, of whom we heard such fine prophecies at the outset of the session, are just as much given to verbosity as the old lot were. M.H.B. spells “ gaspipe” in New Zealand.

There is a terrible scarcity of houses of a good class in Wellington. A lot of banking swells, who have recently made Wellington their head-quarters, have had the greatest difficulty in finding houses that they consider suitable to their dignity.

The cablegrams about the War in the East remind us of the “lying bulletins,” which the Great Napoleon was so used to send out. The Japs and Chinese appear to be just as accomplished liars.

The new Musical Society, founded by the festival choir, is a good idea, but it’s a mistake to let Mr. Robert Parker have sole control. An excellent musician, but too dictatorial when allowed a free-hand. There should be two conductors-in-chief. The Society should not depend on the great Parker alone.

What’s the reason of the increase of cancer ? Bad meat! That’s the trouble. Ask Yan Stav., and he’ll tell you that the Jews never suffer from this loathsome disease. Why ? Because their meat is subjected to a rigid inspection.

\ No dividend for the Wellington Woollen Company shareholders. Well, well, when Kennedy Mac was boss of the show there was always a dividend, wherever it came from. Mac has got the laugh on his side now.

The proceedings at the Synod do not give one a very exalted opinion of the intelligence of the members of that august body. There was a good deal of bickering as usual, and a spirit of high dried old Toryism, which appears to be inseparable from Anglican assemblages.

" The first case of hydrophobia ever reported in Australia is said to have occurred recently at Adelaide. The afflicted one ohewed off a part of a bobby’s ear. ’Ear, ’ear, said the local larrikins, with that lack of sympathy which they have for the “ force.” It was a mongrel cur which bit the man who bit the bobby.

We hear very bad accounts of Coolgardie from returning New Zealanders. No one should go who hasn’t at least J 6300 to buy camels so as to make a start right into the interior. Round Coolgardie there’s absolutely ’no -show. Wages men are not wanted. There are hundreds on the field who.cannot get work.

The Government have issued a notice strictly preserving stoats and weasels. Yet up country you can't go to a single farmer’s place without hearing the settler cursing these imported pests for killing his lambs and scoffing his best poultry.

A meeting is to be held at Christchurch on the 6th December to consider the formation of a New Zealand Cricket Association. It seems doubtful, however, whether Stoddart’s.team will be able to pay New Zealand a visit.

Marion Mitchell, of Pollard’s Lilliputians, celebrated her 18th birthday when the company were here last. She is a Wellington girl, and has a fine future before her if she will only study. Her father travels with the show, and plays the cornet in the orchestra.

Auckland “ Observer,” hitherto a staunch supporter of the present Government, begins to show signs of a tendency to rat. What’s the matter ? Not enough Government ads ?

The Union Company, we hear, mean to make a big attempt this summer to run off the Huddart, Parker boats. . But H.. P. and Co. say that they’ve come to stay, and the U.S.S. have a harder contract in hand than they think.

There is some talk of a well-known squatter-M.H.R. being engaged to the daughter of a parson, who was at one time virtually King of a well-known Island in the South Seas. If the marriage conies off it will be a case of B and B.

Why shouldn't a lady cyclist have a light and ring a bell just like the male wheel enthusiast is obliged to do ? This question is sent us by a lady whose “kiddy” was nearly run over the other night by a divided skirtist on her bone-shaker.

Another death in journalism. Robert Martin, editor of the Napier “ Daily Telegraph,” has gone where, we hope, leaders and proofs are unknown. He was a Scotchman by birth, and was at one time editor of the “ Southland Daily Times.”

The Hon. Patrick Dignan, M.L.C., died suddenly at New Plymouth on the 19th October. He was an old Aucklander. Two vacancies now: who will get them ? Why not make Mac a “ Lord ? ” He’d look the part, and wouldn’t he just stir up the old fossils.

Will anybody tell us what practical good has been achieved for "Wellington by .Stout and Bell during the. late session? “ Worst City members we ever had”—so everybody says. It will take allH. D. B’s money and influence to get him in again. Every day we hear people who supported him at the last election saying “.Never again’” And they mean it.

Alfred Dampier, whose season in Wellington a year or two ago was such a frost, is in London, trying to arrange for his appearance in “ Robbery Under Arms.” The play, as produced by Alfred when he was in Wellington, was a very trashy dramatisation of Rolfe Boldrewood’s capital yarn. It’s long odds that Alfred won’t “catch on” in London unless at some very second rate Temple of Thespis. . ’ '

Joe Ivess has. “ planted” another paper at Hawera. An enterprising, industrious fellow is “ Joe.” “ Competition is the soul of business ” is his maxim, so he pluckily goes and starts a paper where another man would not think of running against the existing paper. What’s more, Joe’s papers are always well printed, and when he lets his own bold Roman hand have U show he makes the local hair fly.'