Minor Matters

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XXI, 27 May 1899, Page 734

Minor Matters

Maoris are not evidently free from the attacks of that green-eyed monster jealousy. The Maoris at Paeroa seem to be having a high time of it. They have made a rule that all Europeans have to leave the pah by five o’clock. Last meeting they held in March a number of young fellows stayed about the pah till well on to midnight, but the Maoris have now put a stop to any recurrence of this kind of thing.

Bad cooking is the curse of New Zealand, but we cannot equal America in this any more than we can in any other direction. A man named William Flatnow, living at Newark, New Jersey, has begun a suit for a divorce from his wife on novel grounds. He complains of her cookery; but the specific act he alleges against her is that she fed him on hash made of indiarubber, cut up very fine. He asserts that she gave him nothing else to eat at his breakfast and dinner for weeks, and the dish nearly killed him.

What a look of amazement must have been depicted on the face of one of our residents the other day when, on emptying a bag of chaff purchased

one day before, he found a kitten in it (writes the Benger ‘Mail’). The little creature, which must have got in while the bags were being filled, was almost dead. The traditional nine lives that cats are supposed to have were fully drawn upon, for when found the kitten was near the end of the ninth.

We have all heard of the mythical man who aimed at the pigeon and shot the crow, but it has been left to a Taranaki sport when out shooting near Hawera to aim at a pheasant and shoot a pig. This occurred the other day. A fine pheasant rose, the sport fixed, the bird kept on flying, and a fine pig was slaughtered.

Several fair bags of pheasants have been obtained during the past week. Mr W. Adamson was the most succesful, obtaining eight brace one afternoon.

The deer stalking season in the Wairarapa d : strict closed on the 30th ult. During the season excellent sport is reported to have been obtained, and over 100 good heads have reached the taxidermists. This is the first season stalkers were allowed to shoot more than three stags. Owing to the rapid increase of deer in the Wairarapa the restriction was removed. ♦ ♦ ♦

The friends of a native woman applied at a recent sitting of the Hutt Court for a prohibition order against her. Like the coy maiden, ‘first she would, and then she wouldn’t’ agree to the issue of the order. Being pressed for an answer as to why she so frequently resorted to publichouses, she naively replied that it was to satisfy her thirst, and insinuated that she was not aware that any prohibition law was in force to prevent her. Constable Cruickshank said that, as he turned her out of one door of a certain hotel, she went in by another. The licensee, of course, laconically remarked the constable, always said that he had given her no drink, but she had been frequently drunk, nevertheless. The constable was satisfied that the Europeans were in the habit of supplying the woman with drink. A witness testified that she always came home drunk, and another replied that he always cleared out when she came home. An order was cruelly issued by an unsympathetic bench.

A gentleman in the Bush district recently sent 24 pigs to the Woodville bacon curing establishment, and received in return a cheque for £67. In consequence of this a number of Makotuku farmers have indicated

their intention of ‘going in stiff’ for pig rearing this year. In the same connection it is interesting to note that a Norsewood resident turned out two pigs at five months turning 2721 b when dressed for the factory, and for them received £4 10/8 from a Wellington firm.

John Lawrence Toole, the actor, who was out here some eight or nine years ago is still fond of his joke, though so terribly ill. Speaking to an old friend —Hatton to wit—the other day he said: Tm very ill, but I can still see the humorous side of tilings. This is a grim one I’m going to tell you.’ He smiled in a half-pathetic half-amused way. ‘On my birth-day—sixty-nine, not as old as Methuselah, you know—a gentleman-like sort of fellow asked to shake hands with me. I suppose he had heard that I had had a great many flowers sent to me. “Mr Toole,’’ he said, “I always admired you, and have seen you in your greatest characters, and it is a pleasure to shake hands with you.” I am not very strong, and the pleasure was not as great on my part because he was so vigorous and so deuced healthy. “My dear friend, when you shuffle off, talk of flowers! why there’ll be such u pile on your coffin as was never seen before.” I was not feeling at all well; but I couldn’t help smiling at the idiot, and I wished you’d been there to witness the scene. ‘You flatter me,’ I said, “Not a bit of it, my dear old man, your funeral will be one of the greatest tributes man ever had, and you deserve it; yes, heavens! you do.” I think he must have been dining, but he was in real earnest. “It’ll be a sight to see the flowers heaped up on your coffin: I must shake hands with you again.” And he did. Some men in my condition would have had a fit; I nearly had one of laughter. But it was grim, wasn’t it? He meant well, I dare say.’ ♦ ♦ ♦

The schoolmaster was abroad at the meeting of the Gisborne Borough Council last evening. One member, in deliverintg himself of a rhapsody upon the arrival at the Council table of a new member, said it was a good thing for a man to come in and rouse them out of their ‘sleepy, indigent, careless state.’ Referring to the member’s initial speech, he said that matters could not have been argued on a more broad, concise, firm, and level basis. He trusted that the ‘elocutionary argument’ used would affect all gentlemen to the extent that it would benefit the burgesses at large and the Council in particular. Continuing he said ‘I think it is problematical—what will 1

eall it? —I will call it a parable that some one has come in to rouse you up. It is a God-send, to use a technical term.’ Without this rousing up the Council*, he went on to say, had an ‘illicit’ existence. ♦ * *

The outcome of the late public meeting held in Picton in reference to the doings of the Picton Borough Council, was a very breezy meeting of the Council afterwards. The Mayor however, ruled that he was not obliged to take notice of any resolutions passed at a public meeting. In that case he was resolved to let matters remain in statu quo till the next election of councillors, when the ratepayers could express their opinions by electing whomsoever they chose. The whole fiasco arose out of the appointment of the Town Clerk to be also Inspector of Works, in addition to half a dozen other appointments which he holds. The ratepayers consider that the wisest plan would be to pay an experienced man who could do the whole of the borough work. Another point of difference between the ratepayers and the Council was the unjust raising of the water rates, and the letting of water power to a councillor for lighting his hotel with electricity at a much less rate than another was paying for his malt-house.

Owing to the recent unusually bad weather, no mails came to Picton from Thursday of last week till Tuesday this week. Marlborough people thought they were being isolated again. The heavy seas breaking on th" coast at Port Underwood were distinctly heard in Picton on Saturday night, and fears for the safety of coasting craft amid sueh terrific breakers as there must have been was felt by most people.