Minor Matters.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XVII, 28 April 1900, Page 784

Minor Matters.

Some of the very advanced New Zealand sisterhood held a public meeting lately for the purpose of considering legislation deemed necessary in the interests of their sex. After discussion (says the “Australasian") two resolutions were agreed to unanimously. The first was, “That if a woman married and elected to have offspring her husband should be bound to put aside a certain sum every year for each child." The second resolution provided that “If a woman married and elected not to have offspring her husband should invest annually onethird of his income for her benefit." A little man in the audience hereupon wished to ask a question, and on permission being granted put (he following query:—“Suppose a woman marries and elects to have offspring and doesn't, what's to be done then?" The little man escaped with his life.

"Richardson, the temperance fanatic, standing for Auckland City, is pretty smart at repartee, but he cannot equal the late Mr Thomas Whittaker, the temperance leader, who died at Scarborough the other day. On a visit to Cambridge* In* had to follow a speaker who had clinched every paragraph of his speech with the declaration “these are facts," to the huge amusement of a number of disorderly students, who made speaking almost impossible. During Mr Whittaker's speech the leader of the band, a young man in a light, suit and a straw hat, started a cry of “(live us farts—more facts.*’ Making a terrible pause, Mr Whittaker looked the audacious offender full in the face, and said, “1 will give the meeting one fact—l have never seen so big a fool in so small a suit of clothes as the young man in the straw hat."

When General Hector Macdonald returned to England after Omdurman, the Prince of Wales asked “FightingMac" how it was that they had not met before. “Pardon me, sir, 1 think we have," was the reply. “Where can that have been?" asked the Prince, surprised. “When you were in India, sir, 1 did sentry-go outside your tent." “But why was a sentry needed outside my tent?" The answer caused His Royal Highness considerable amusement, but when he had regained control of his features he held out his hand and said, “General Macdonald, you were doing sentry-go in 1875, and now you are a general in the British Army. I am proud to have met you.*’

Game does not appear to be plentiful down South this season. Invercargill sportsmen have not met with hick, and it is even worse in the. Wyndham and Mataura districts. The “Ensign" reports that on Sunday la-t five Sportsmen from Gore and Wyndham sallied forth to the happy hunting grounds supposedly abounding in the Glenhnm district, but alihougn out and about at the first blush of morning, and remaining in search of game throughout the entire day. their aggregated hag totalled only one misguided rabbit. Another Gore party of two set out on Saturday in search of pigeons in the wild and woolly Retreat country, and returned staggering under the weight of two birds.

A writer in “Cornhill" tells of a certain Yorkshireman much given to over indulgence in quack medicines. The clergyman of his parish, orthodox in all things, grieved much over this case of medical schism. Finding remonstrance with the offender useless, the parson appealed to the wife. He did not take the line of argument a doctor would have followed, and proceeded to denounce the husband as a fool who wasted his money and ruined his health in the process. He took higher ground. “The swallowing of so much quark medicine is a downright sin," said hr. “I knew it," replied the unhappy wife, and many's the time I have prayed against it. in the church service." Puzzled as to whal, part, of the liturgy was found appropriate to the case, he at length asked the woman to repeat the passage. She was ready with the reply, “From all false doctoring • . , Good Lord deliver us!" •

Tt was elicited at an inquest in Dunedin on a six-year-old boy named Dee, that the little fellow, in the absence of his mother, had gone rabbit hunting, lie entered a large rabbit hole feet first, and was evidently unable to get out. In this position he lay all night, the irritation to the windpipe and lungs from the inhalation of sand, his eyes, nose, ears and mouth containing sand, causing congestion of the lungs, which, in addition to the effects of exposure he had suffered, caused death. It was stated by a witness that it was the usual way for the boys about Green Island to go into a hole feet first till they feel the rabbit with their feet, and then they would pull it out between their feet. It was very risky for children to go about among the rabbit holes, of which there were a great many.

Just at the present Sydney is very much worried. It is being inoculated for the plague, which makes it irritable, and it is also annoyed because during the last 12 months 757 towels, 46 water bottles, and 427 tumblers have been stolen from the train lavatories. But these little peculations should not annoy the Sydney folks (says a contemporary Australian writer). They show’ a soul of cleanliness beneath things evil. A people that is willing to risk so much foi' the sake of water and towels must essentially be clean, and cannot for long be an abiding place for any dirt disease such as the plague.

A recent incident in the Oxford district is worked up into a very dramatic yarn by the “Bulletin's" pet lurid stylist. He says: A pathetic lifestory of an Austrian immigrant family makes some little stir about Oxford (Maoriland). Bernard Langer and his wife came out. 25 years ago, from a primitive agricultural region in midEurope. They belonged to an era when the Austrian peasant was even more densely ignorant than he is now’. They had no gift for languages, and could never learn English, and they never could fathom the mysteries of a new legal system. But they were (piiet, clean, religious, and intensely industrious. Tn the early days they contrived to buy a piece of wild bush land far away from roads or inhabitants, and they proceeded to build a Louse and cultivate. Having gone plunging into the wilderness on their own in search of their bit of soil, and knowing nothing of surveyors' marks, they naturally built on and cultivated another man's land by mistake. It was some years before the other man happened out that way, and then he ordered them to quit. All the adjacent legal authorities, including the policeman and the goat inspector, went out and tried to explain to them, but they couldn’t understand. After a year's excitement they were ejected and practically ruined. Then they plunged again, found the wrong piece of land a second time, and proceeded with frantic industry to clear and build. i'he new place was mortgaged beyond redemption, and the owner had left it, so again the luckless Austrians had time to make it into a little paradise before the mortgagee foreclosed and sold. The new buyer turned them out again, and they went silently and almost uncomplainingly, believing that an iniquitous Government had once more confiscated their property. They built a house on the public road, and were shifted some more, as a matter of course. Then the police interfered and found old Lunger's own piece oT land—the one he had lost or mislaid years ago; traced out the boundaries of it, and shifted the family forcibly on to it. All the foreigners from the nearest towns came out and explained to the Langers in so many different languages Unit this was really and truly their property that they began to understand. So they built a fourth house in their old age, and attacked the scrub with the desperate energy of a bull-ant. But all the foreigners and interpreters and police in the neighbourhood could not explain to old Bernard Langer that he had to pay road rates. Hr simply said, in the guilelessness of his heart, that he couldn't owe road rates for he had no road. In his extreme old age Langer,

still belting away desperately at the primeval forest, owed about 9/ for taxes. And the Road Board, instead of passing- round the hat and subscribing the miserable sum, and letting a useful patriarch go on improving the country, got a Supreme Court order, and sold the farm. It fetched £2O, and. as the costs of recovering the 9/ were about £ll 11/, there was £8 left for the Austrian veteran. It was explained to the ignorant old hero that, after tearing the scrub off three farms in succession, he had to go once more. and he promptly put down his axe and died as uneomprehendingly as lie had lived. The family's goods were put over the fence one pouring wet day on to a stranger's patch of scrub land, and the stranger sent word that they could stay there as long as they lived and no questions would be asked. But. even before this permission arrived, they had put up another hut, and the old woman and her son —a silent replica of the dead father—were already belting down the scrub and the big trees for 16 horn’s a day, and making the place fertile. The desire to struggle desperately against big trees with a blunt axe was in the blood. At latest advices the State still owed them the £B. for the old lady won't sign a recipt so as to get the money—she thinks the receipt is some new form of ejectment devilry, -vlso, she won’t take charitable relief, nor apply for an old age pension, but she is still keeping- the house spotlessly clean and whacking down the scrub with the courage of a forlorn hope.

A long-standing fowl feud between two residents of a western suburb has (according to the same capital raconteur) just developed into a rat feud. Mr A.'s Irish terrier was accused of having supped one December night off some young Orpingtons of high degree belonging to Mr B. Feeling ran so high that the matter was brought to Court. Mr A declared his dog loathed poultry to such a degree that they had given up having it on Sundays. The scent of it used to be so abhorrent to Spot that he would retire to the end of the garden and sob. Mr B deposed that at. 3 a.m. on December 21 he was standing at his window, and saw the accused dog deliberately kill the fowls. Mr A wanted to know what. Mr B was doing standing at his window at that time of night, etc. However. the upshot was that Spot was found guilty, and his master fined £3 and costs. A and B did not “speak” again till last week. Secret information that the plague inspector meant to call had got to the ears of A and B. who cleaned up their yards, and spread sheets of lime, till the surface looked as clean and new and white as hospital eots. On the appointed day the inspector came —very early—to B’s place, and found in the corner a miniature “tip,” on the top of which lay three dead bubonic-looking rats! Then ensued a hullaballoo. B accused A of tipping the rubbish there during the night, and top-dressing it with rats. The inspector spoke of the “scandal” such a yard was to a borough such as Tinkan. In the end B had to pay a £5 fine for having unhealthy premises. Spot wears a smile as he now sits on A’s door-step.

litany yarns are going about concerning the volunteer troopers for the war. Here is one of the latest: —One trooper could do nothing with hit horse. The brute didn’t exactly jib, bwt it hung fire in its movements in a most mysterious way. At last its unfortunate owner inquired into its antecedents and learnt that it had been supplied by a tramway company. Now the trooper carries a bell in one hand on parade ami it is astonishing what a difference there is in his drill and how smartly his charger obeys the “ting-ting.”

A country pedagogue had two pupils, one of whom he was partial, and to the other severe. One morning it happened that these two boys were late, and were called up to account for it.

“You must have heard the bell, boys; ■why did you not come?” “Please, sir,” said the favourite, “I was dreamin’ I was goin’ to Californy, and I thought the school bell was the steamboat bell as I was goin’ in.” “Very well,” said the master, glad of any pretext to excuse his favourite, “and now, sir,” turning to the other, “what, have you to say?” “Please, sir,” said the puzzled boy, “I—l—was waiting to see Tom off!”

According to a contemporary. “The Umpire,” a great number of the Intelligent Department people paid out of English Secret Service money are women, who, as ordinary careless tourists, enjoy opportunities of taking snapshots of fortresses, etc., where no man. however garbed, would be allowed. A prominent official assured the writer that threeqiTarters of the sketches and plans of foreign fortifications in our possession were obtained by womien. Every foreign country has its women spies in this country, and they are often people in a very high position and well received in society. At the same time, if a man who is ever so remotely in the know seems to be attracted by a foreign dame, no matter how irreproachable she seems to be. he is not told anything until he is either married to her or shipped out of danger.

Two young men went in swimming off an anchor., d yacht in Hobson's Bay on a blight moonlight night last month. Titty were having a pleasant time, pretending to drown,to the great distress of a black ref>,ever dog that was also in the swim. Suddenly a large, dark, ominous shape swept past one youth, so close in the clear moonlit water that it touched his arm ?n passing. There was a yell of “Shark!” and men and dog amde for the boat in unspeakable funk. The shark headed them, paused for a moment, says one swimmer, whilst his (the bather’s) sickening horror almost drowned him, then made his selection, ent in—and took the dog. When the two survivors were yanked into the boat they said nothing for five minutes. and then “Brandy!” was moaned faintly. “All the same,” said onti hero, when be had gulphed down half a tumblerful of spirit. “I think it was a d insult for him to have preferred the dog!” This is an anti-temper-ance story.

Here perhaps is a warning for certain native ambitious New Zealand townships:—The electric lighting plan't of the borough of Lambton, New South Wales, which was seized some time ng-o by the Commercial Bank of Australia, as the principal creditor of the municipality, is to be disposed of and removed. The establishment of the electric lighting system was (according to the Sydney “Morning Herald") mainly responsible for the financial difficulties of th<« borough, but although the plant has been lost the indebtedness of the municipality will not be materially reduced, the principal and interest still owing amounts to about £17,000, and there appears little hope of the ratepayers freeing themselves from debt for many years to come.

An English University professor passed his last holiday in a verystrange manner. He has been travelling about England asking every tramp that he met why he didn’t work. He interviewed 2000 vagrants, and, classing them according to the various reasons they gave for not earning their daily bread In an orthodox manner, we g-et the following: — Six hundred and fifty-three said they were willing to work, but could not get any; 445 could not give any reason that Would hold water; 301 thought that no one ought to have to work, and if some people were foolish enough to do so, well, they intended living on those said people; 407 were on their way to procure work at distant towns, having letters in their possession promising them employment at the said towns; and the remaining 194 were waiting for relatives to die and leave them their money.