FACTS. FANCIES, QUIPS & COMMENTS

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 9, 26 August 1908, Page 11

FACTS. FANCIES, QUIPS & COMMENTS

FBOM THE AUSTRALIAN PAPERS.

An aged petitioner in Melbourne Divorce Court the other day was remarkable for being the brother-in-law of his own daughter-in-law. He and son Job had married two sisters, but whereas Job's wife is still living with her husband, the sister who paired off with Job’s father has proved a faithless baggage. She lived with her old man for a week or so, 'way up in Alexandra (Vie.), after whieh he went away to get work and ruminate.. He was 64, and a weary toiler at that, when he riveted his affections upon Mary, who was 19. Probably his exile was saddened by reflections upon the disparity in their ages. But after a week’s absence lie returned to his bride, and she kicked him until he fled. Then she threw stones at his retreating form. Subsequently she broke him up with a poem of dismissal, beginning with "Go and leave me, I don’t want you.” The moral is very pointed. No gentleman on the shady side of sixty should marry the youthful sister of his son Job’s wife. ® @ @ There is pathos in everything, even in George Robert Beere’s rambling address from the dock at Melbourne General Cessions, after he had been convicted of obtaining postcards by false pretences. For example:— I was to have been married to a girl who came in for £2OO, and she would have given me whatever money I wanted. If the Court passes sentence upon me her life will be ruined as well as mine. I could never marry her. The - wedding bells would not ring out. They will rather ring out a death knell to our hopes. The clergyman had been engaged, and only the ceremony remained to be performed to make two loving hearts one. But now our joy has been turned to sorrow, and all for the small sum of 6/0. For twelve months past I have been teaching in a Sunday-school. ... I ask your Honor to temper justice with mercy. I have spent my life in rescuing Others, and now I shall be sent to prison, and I suppose that the hope I had of seeing the American fleet will be dashed to the ground. Whereupon Judge Box smote him with a sentence of 12 months’ hard labour. Within the pale of Melbourne Gaol, For fifty weeks or more, George Robert Beere must shed the tear Of bitterness galore. With sympathy for such as he The toughest bosoms beat. Heigho! if he were only free To go and see the Fleet! Devoid of hope, he’s picking rope, Or mooching round the yard; Beenrely caged, he is engaged In doing “12 months’ hard.” But when he falls asleep at night His dreams are long and sweet; Then comes a vision of delight— A vision of the Fleet. Can burly Bent withhold consent To Brother Beere’s release ! A little while from durance vile Let him depart in peace. The learned Judge will not begrudge The prisoner this treat — One week, one day, to go away, And gaze upon the Fleet. ® © © Insolvency Judge Moule, of Victoria, lately pointed out the straight and narrow path to that State’s prospective and possible insolvents. When Timothy O’Hanlon went bung, after 12 months in a store at Lilydale, he owned some 1270; *nd, after selling his business, his assets totalled about £lBO. Having paid £2O worth of local debts in full, O’Hanlon packed up his household goods and his family, and went to Melbourne to talk to hie Yarra-side creditors. But being on the way to see one of them next morning with £33 in his pocket, he happened across a friend who was •imply dying to take him out to the taces and put him on a good thing for

the Ascot Cup. Mr O’Hanlon went to the races, backed the good thing, and returned home with £7S in his pocket. That, as Judge Moule remarked, settled him completely. What were a few pounds to him who could make £2O or £3O a day by backing “good things!” Making no further attempt to see his creditors, he boldly went to Flpmington, to Caulfield, Epsom, Williamstown, and other courses, until all the money had disappeared. After informing Timothy that he had started business with insufficient capital, had kept his books in a nondescript fashion, and had withdrawn capital for personal expenses without making any attempt to replace it, Judge Moule quoted see. 141 of the Insolvency Act, which deals with people who gamble with the only means they have for paying their creditors. And then, having quoted his text, His Honor- preached a brief sermon to the effect that Timothy must go without a certificate, but could take two months’ gaol instead. © © © “Women, like very young men, are generally able to hug a romance closely, even if it be a disappointing one.” So says a leading article of last week, in dealing with the very interesting subject of Love. Some hug Romance that might have been, and some Hug the dear Dream that Cash has overcome, Nor realise the luck of their Escape From matrimony’s endless Martyrdom. They fain would wake the Echoes of a tongue Once turned to words of Love; the Songs oft sung, The Vows once made by moonlight, haunt them still; Forgive them, ah, Forgive them—they are Young! Perchance they treasure still some golden Curl In memory of One they deemed a Pearl; But we have learned to let such Phantoms go— We do not hug Romance; we hug the Girl! © ® © The land laws of New Zealand have been the subject of criticism, but they just suited Duigan. He had held a barren selection in a dry district of northern Victoria for a number of years, and becoming dissatisfied with the results of his labour, he sold out and emigrated to New Zealand, where his brother Terence had taken up a farm. Duigan was so captivated by the land laws that he immediately applied for a selection under the 99 years’ lease system. His application was about to ba granted, when a dreadful thought occurred to him. "Terence”, he said, “th’ tinure is f’r noinetynoine years only, an’ be this an’ be that ’tis havin’ me th’ di vis are. Suppose th’ Governmint got me safe on th’ land, and thin, at th’ ind iv th’ noinety-noine years they refused f’r to renew me lease!’ The spirit of caution whieh was inherent in the Duigan family manifested itself in his niece, Mary, in the form of an abiding faith which was an equal protection against risks. Among her most cherished possessions was a bottle of holy water, and one blazing summer day, as she saw a roaring grass fire top the rise and roll on towards the house she bethought herself of her talisman. She rushed into her bedroom, snatched the bottle from the dressing-table, and sprinkled a portion of its contents on each of the four corners of the building. Miraculously the wind changed, and the house escaped. Mary’s thankfulness was touching to witness, until a chance remark by her mother filled her with a horrid doubt. She made a hasty search, and found that instead of holy water she had anointed the house with a bottle of eye lotion, the property of her aged parent, who had left it on the dressingtable that morning. But, although Mary’s faith received a shock, her mother’s belief in the virtues of her pet specific was made firmer than ever, and she now regards it as simply priceless.

At the Sydney Central Police Court last week, Chinese were quite in evidence, not an altogether unusual occurrence this, in view of the frequency of police raids on those haunts where Asiatic sportsmen most do congregate. But one of the number was very wrath at being hauled before a legal tribunal. His only misdemeanour was that of being ovetfenerous, and he could not for the life of im make out why an open-hearted offer of good money should be so harshly viewed. Unfortunately he chose to offer the amount, a five-pound note, to Inspector Roche, and the gift was further to be conditional on the inspector becoming temporarily blind, and thus allow liis would-be benefactor to escape an inquiry into certain suspicious actions. In the morning a sad-looking Chinese was commanded to answer a charge laid under section 17 of Act No. 20 of 1899. He listened patiently to the indictment, pleaded guilty in a bored sort of way. and was commanded to pay a snirt of £2 10/ and costs, or in default remain a guest of his Majesty for 14 days, provision being made for suitable if somewhat arduous exercise to be- constantly taken during his enforced stay. Judging by the expression of his countenance, one Chinese at least considers that the members of our local constabulary are singularly lacking in business enterprise. © © © Once (and not so very long ago) there was in Australia a daily paper editor with a seventeenth-century preference for Latin over Saxon words in English prose. No one was ever "busy,” but always “occupied”; his writers might be “verbose,” but not "wordy”; he liked “velocity/’ but disliked “speed;” One day a casual contributor wrote him an article beginning: "The Premier is being adovated by his more fervent supporters.” Adovatca? Dictionaries gave no explanation. “I regarded it,’’ said the contributor, “ag a well-sounding Latin substitute for ‘eggedon,’ a somewhat homely phrase.” He was not a contributor again. ® © © From Penshurst we have an old tale retold—the tale of the Birds of Prey and the Golf Balls. It will be recalled that some time ago the crows created much annoyance at- the Penshurst links by pouncing on the golf balls and trying to fly away with them, under the impression they were some now kind of egg. In this instance many crows and many golf balls are involved, together with a theory of the transmission of hereditary characteristics which would delight a professor of biology. As the crows are alleged to eat the balls, it is not unreasonable to prediet that the little crows of the coming spring will no longer,, remain true to the instincts of their race, and roost in the topmost boughs. Instead it is highly probable that they will become a race of gutter-perchers.