WITHIN THE COMMONWEALTH

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 20, 19 May 1909, Page 52

WITHIN THE COMMONWEALTH

Lvve Laughs at Parents. / F MAX named Gamble, up at f I Uputapot, X.S.W.. wa- very J J[ angry when the m 'I left <ays “Melbourne Punch"*. Gamble, is a widower. He has a line farm and * handsome daughter. We gather that quite a number of promising young agri-yulturi-ts in the vicinity wanted the tine daughter—whose name, by the way, is SAnnie but Gamble had other views for her. and stalled them off. Gamble’s meihodr- were very severe, and had not his (laughter's sanction, as they tended to make her unpopular with the youth of jthc district, and no nice girl likes to become unpopular. We trace in Gamble’s fwogramme of resistance all the familiar methods of the reluctant parent in the comic papers. He bought two horrid flogs. he kept a gun, he shod himself arith hard, heavy boots, and he had a hose attached to the large iron tank, end would turn a stream on any aspiring Suitor who would not be dislodged by ♦he dog. the gun. and boots. The most persistent of Miss Gamble's admirers was a young man named Jimmy Reach, a surveyor. and a tine sample of the Australian goods we are raising nowadays. He defied Gamble's dog. he scoffed at his gun, he evaded the retributive blucher. and soldered up the tap of the big iron tank. Rut Gamble'is a fierce, hard man. end fought Jimmie off. tooth and nail. Bleach put it about Uputapot that he (irculd have Annie in spite of her father •nd all her relatives, and in defiance of •11 the Gamble dogs and utensils of war. and Miss Annie seemed to think the (better of him on account of his persistence. In Australia, when it conies to Settling on a husband, girl children do not respect the opinions of their parents. However, Gamble kept Beach away from his girl, or his girl away from Beach, which is the same thing. Then came a •ware from Sydney, calling Gamble to the capital on most urgent business. Gamble hastened to Sydney and found that there was no urgent business, and that the wire was a wretched fake. Full of forebodings, he took train back to I putapor next morning, and was contained with rage and dread through a wearisome seven hours’ rid-. He found bls house in possession of a rejoicing crowd. There had been a swagger meal and great merry-making. Gamble raged through .-i -i guests, clamouring for Us daughter. “Why. don’t you Iknow,” it piired ighbour. “She's gone her honeymoon." "Wha-a-t!” shriek I Gamble. “She was married to Jimmie Beach in the house here this r Tning. and teey’ve gone to Melbourne on their honeymoon.” Gamble is still raving up at Uputapot. but Annie seems quite ' iled to the change, and no doubt all will come right when Gamble ♦an i rg t way he was lured from b - laughs at many things besides locksmiths. It is often very hilarious Departure of the Londons. The Jack Jjondons boarded their t shortly 1 fore midright th-' other day. says a Sydney paper, their farewellers being Mi-s Ola Humphry ind Mr 11. X. Southwell. The last named, who was to have managed the lecture tour that never eventuated, was hypn -‘.i-ed into going on to Xewcastle. swagless as he stood, with the pair of “mates.” There the party bumped its head frequently in coaldrives i i -wrest!. .1 with the numerous interviewer. Mrs London, as a matter of formality. goes as “stewardess” on the Tymerie: her husband is writ down a- “purser.” and their coloured youth attendant is a “cabin-boy.” Apparently the tramp is not supposed to carry t>irmhi< pa-sengs-rs—only workers. •“Gnawed by , «kroa.-hes and splashed ♦ ' - .- t b- gaming of the ins, riptioir London wrote to Miss Humphrey in a copy of “The Sea Wolf’ that had accompanied him in his wanderings in the Snark, and which he bestowed upon the lady. They are a vital, hard- » e tking pair, the London’. Both lay low to the public while here, and wrote •11 the morning, and in the afternoon •ecumulated more material for more Writing. The Louduaeaa proved to be

no mean musician, and urged by Pianist Laurence Godfrey Smith, she attacked a dangerous, bristlin" concerto in its lair in a private drawing-room, and though the animal was new to her she won out brilliantly. At the three Crossley concerts, the male Mate used to write in a notebook with great velocity during intervals and some of the encores. The Gastronome. A Melbourne correspondent thus waxes reminiscent: - Something occurred the other day to remind me of a clever “fake” that Marcus Clark once wrote for the “Herald" here. This was headed “The Gastronome,” and purported to give particulars of the latest and most wonderful scientific invention. An elec-' trie battery, it was described, was fixed in the editors room. One wire attached to this led to the editor’s table, and another to the kitehen at Menzie’s Hotel. The chef had everything ready, and at a given signal placed his wire end in a soup entree, roast, or sweet. The editor placed his end of the wire on his tongue, and was at once able to enjoy the flavour, and to accurately discriminate between the viands. l*n Melbourne the “scientific article” was accepted as a clever fake. You can imagine the astonishment that was created many months afterwards on an English paper being found to contain a translation of a report of a meeting of scientists held

in Vienna. The “Gastronome” article had been brought under the notice of the grave and reverend signors there assembled, and they had expressed wonder that such a marvellous invention should have emanated from such a young and far-away place as Australia. s■> Alcohol Among the Ants. “Ooloo” writes in the “Bulletin”: — “Polstan” and I, whilst on a shooting expedition, emptied the few drops of Australian beer that we could spare in the neighbourhood of a regiment of ants that had come to clean up after our lunch. About one-tenth of a second served to make that swarm the most deplorable drunken community I ever saw. The first to fall was a big, rawboned cuap—a Scotsman, I think. He

made a feeble pretence of sobriety. He was solemn, and stopped in his wanderings every now and then to rebuke other ants for whistling. Another ant was hilarious. He brandished a small stick in his tentacles, and said he had a brother who was a priest. Judkins was there, and kept running in and out of the drunk-, and smelling in all the gutters. He was organising a group of Wesleyan ants into “spotters” in front of a piece of bread that had been soaked in beer, when my . dissolute companion picked him up on a twig and dropped him into the beer, lie came out very chastened, and took about 40 steps (that is giving him 10 legs, which may be more or less), and then lie dropped dead. A big Cornish ant (still sober, as he had just come out of the mine) picked up the deceased and carted him home. Whether it was for pure charity or for the beer smell neither “Polstan” nor I could decide. This yarn may look tall, but it is all true, except that I can’t be certain of the name of Judkins. Neither of us thought of asking until it was too late. Popularity of Nellie Stewart. The queue system was used in connection with ‘‘the early doorites” for the first night of the Nellie Stewart season at the Princess’s Theatre, says Melbourne ‘‘Argus." It was wanted, too, for the most enthusiastic of her admirers were already in waiting before 12 o'clock, and at that hour there were a score or more of gallery girls seated on the asphalt footpath of Little Bourke-street. nibbling at a frugal lunch of pastry and sandwiches, and looking forward gaily to an eight-hour shift on

the steps. At 4 o'clock there were well over 300 there, and afternoon tea, provided for them by a considerate management. was much appreciated. It was a strange sight to see the city streets turned for the nonce into a picnic ground, and the clatter of teacups, blended with the cheerful voices of the tea drinkers, attracted a curious and envious crowd of onlookers. Those who spent the afternoon in this way demonstrated their gratitude by taking up a subscription there and then for a bouquet. which was lowered down from the gallery by a chord when Miss Stewart made her first entrance, and was handed up to her amid much enthusiasm. More than that, the whole of the occupants of the gallery, some of whom had been in the precincfs of the theatre for nearly twelve hours, stood in their places (or on them) at the conclusion

of the performance, and gave forth on* continuous roar of cheers and coo ee* until Miss Stewart, who had already bowed her acknowledgments many times, left her dressing room and came before the curtain onee more. Six Months' Reward. That was a nice little game Charlie Ruffin and Willie Watt were up to on the Adelaide line at Millbrook, near Ballarat, the other day. These two bright lads, aged 17, built a stumbling-block of sleepers on the line to bar the express, with the object of making money by faking a splendid rescue. Willie was to rush along the line whirling a signal and whooping deliriously. Then, when the train pulled up in the niek of time, the grateful passengers would find Charlie working nobly by the pile, hurling Hie sleepers off the line. In the excess of their admiration and thankfulness, they would immediately take up a collection for Willie and Charlie, and all would be well. Unfortunately, a wretched linerepairer spoiled the little scheme. Willie and Charlie narrowly eeeaped getting the Royal Humane Society's medal, but they did not go wholly unrewarded—-they got six months. A Pyrrhic Victory. The Broken Hill miners have won in their battle against the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, but it is doubtful if they have profited anything by the victory (says a Melbourne writer). There never has been a strike in Australia where the men have been so utterly foolish in the course of action they followed. For three months the Proprietary mine has lain idle. For three months the miners have done no work, but have dragged out an existence on strike pay. In other words, they have lived on the charity of their fellow-workers all over the Commonwealth. And it has all been unnecessarily. They could have won their ease exactly as they have won it, and they could have been in full work all these months that they have been living on charity. The Proprietary Company offered in the beginning to pay into a trust fund the difference betw-een the old rate of wages and the new lower rate which they intended to pay. Then the matter could be thrashed out in the Arbitration Court and the High Court, and if the men won the accumulated wages in the trust fund would be paid over to them. It ,was an unusually favourable offer for the men. but they rejected it. It is not hard to discover the reasons for this. All over the Commonwealth industrial disputes are cropping up. These disputes are successful or unsuccessful according to the wisdom or foolishness of their leaders. Where the union leaders are level-headed men the unions win. Where the leaders are fools, who imagine that Labour arrogance can sway the administration of . justice, the unions lose. In Broken Hill the unions have won nominally, but in reality they have lost, and lost heavily. What does it profit them to have won their case in the Courts —to have obtained a decision in favour of higher wages—when, through their own foolishness, only a small proportion or the men receive these wages, and the others must continue to exist on charity, as they have done? Their leaders were the last men in the world who should have been allowed to handle a big strike. They were not Labour men. They were revolutionaries, Even if they thought honestly that they were advising in the interests of the men. their fanatical ideas prevented them from reasoning on sound lines. Revolution is their one thought always. They profess to believe that they can obtain by the bludgeon far more than they can get by negotiation and compromise. That they ..re wrong has been exemplified again. The whole business should be a stinging lesson to the Labour unions of Australia. It should show them once and for all that the most successful warfare is made with the weapons of peace.