Humour and Tragedy in Make= believe.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 26, 28 December 1910, Page 8

Humour and Tragedy in Make= believe.

If, as we are sometimes told, our senses are entirely illusory, and objects assume shape and colour to us simply because we view them along lines transmitted to us from the past, it is conversely no less true that we often wilfully deceive these senses. One instance in point is the cinematograph martyr who is devoured by lions in the arena to make a Roman holiday. It is all very life-like, though we know it to be unreal, but we like it. The make-believe, however, is not always so transparent. A most fantastic scene was enacted at Rome in the Via Sistina, and led to unpleasant results, simply because the chief actors had ignored the precaution of making their ultimate purpose known. These were a bride and her groom proceeding in the van of a number of well-dressed friends, when suddenly a motonnan swooped down and bore the bride away in his car. The groom and his friends yelled for assistance, and guards and soldiers who were passing rushed after the fugitives. The latter would undoubtedly have got away, but for the prompt action of a policeman outside the Spanish Embassy, who turned a van across the road, and thus stopped the car. Instead of thanks he received a volley of abuse from the panting pursuers, supplemented by active hostility when the bridegroom came up. He was hustled to the wall and assailed by the angry and excited groom, his tearful bride, and her furious abduetor. Reinforcements arrived, ami the fiasco -erminated by the bridegroom explaining that he was the proprietor of a cinematograph show, and had arranged the pseudo wedding and abduction for the delectation of his patrons. It proved a eostly experiment whieh neither he nor his collaborators are ever likely to repeat. Paddy's Cow. In remote districts of the “Distressful Isle” the impecunious farmers revert to what they euphoniously term a “trust auction.” The auctioneer gives the seller eash at a discount, and allows the buyer three months’ credit. A small party of farmers in a parish will put all their cows together, and dispatch them in the name of one of their number to an auction which they all attend to run up prices and buy the eattle at a good round sura. On their return these astute gentlemen pool the proceeds eqnally, a nJ the accommodating kina are allotted to someone else, and go to market again. In this manner Paddy’s cow jogs from auction to auction, and, incidentally, brings him anything between £3O and £5O by way of unearned increment. Of course, there is always the permanent “floating debt” to consider, but the evil day is staved off by the recurring disposal of the stock. That matters are not precisely what they seem is evident when an expected legacy turns out to be void, and one Is consequently arraigned for obtaining goods on fal«e pretences. At Horsham an elderly eouple named Berwick were

placed hi thia dilemma by a man!a4 daughter, who persuaded papa that hd had inherited £3OO from an uncle, ui each of his olive branches might expect to receive £lOO apiece. Seeing no reaeon why they should await the tedious preliminaries, the family launched into the troublous sea at credit, and papa went to the length of borrowing money from obliging neighbours. A Pious Fraud. Alas! for the mutability of human hopes. A few days later the old gentleman’s daughter wae certified insane, and the story of the legacy proved to be £ humorous invention of her too fertile brain. It was a cruel disappointment* entailing also ugly consequences, noo unlike those suffered by the hungry man who smashed a window of Sweetings, the caterers, in Fleet-street, to secure an attractive-looking pie, whieh, to his mortification, turned out to be » dummy made of sawdust, whose delusive appearance cost him a month's freedom.

It doesn’t pay to take too much fot granted, er to impose too often on tha goodwill of our friends; otherwise, under possibly altered circumstances, wo may find ourselves in the same quandary as a Parisian art student. The young gentleman in question had a penchant for helping himself rather too liberally; to the pomade of a neighbouring beau, to the exasperation of the latter, who at last hit upon a device for teaching his too ardent friend a lesson. He substituted for the pomade a chemical which turned his neighbour's glossy black hair a yellowish white. Perhaps the remedy was a little too severe; at any rate, its author did not go altogether scot-free, for his victim wrecked the premises. Probably few are likely to entertain an angel unawares in these days of selfassertion, but recently a small minority did unquestionably harbour an homicidal lunatic without in the least being aware of the fact. In May a certain James McDonald, incarcerated in an asylum in Dlinois, U.S.A., broke bounds, and, having an ample supply of gear, made a trip through the Eastern States, and paid a visit to several places in Ireland without anyone suspecting who he was or the sort of skeleton he kept locked up in his cupboard. Generally, a fit of violence terminated his respective visits, and the acquamtances he made felt relieved to be rid of him. One cannot help wondering what their feelings would have been had they, subsequently learnt that their troublesome guest had after the lapse of six months reappeared at the asylum and announced that he wanted his old room. Mad, But Generous. Less method, though more humouf, marked the conduct of an altruistic clerk employed by a warehouseman in St. Denis, who, when a fair customer tendered payment for purchases made, told her with a beaming smile that she owed nothing, the proprietor haring decided to make her a present of all she might; honour him by accepting. This remarkable statement he followed up by offering her a handful of bank notes. Thei lady was bewildered, and hesitated; and, possibly, an unpleasant contretemps was only avoided by the timely arrival of the proprietor himself. When he politely but firmly dishonoured the tender his clerk, in no way abashed, flew into a rage, and began smashing everything within reach. He had gone suddenly 1 mad, and his mania had taken this altruistic form. Another sort of humour marked th® visit of a German organist to St. Petersburg, and for a while set him wondering whether he had been transported into some mystie adventure savouring of the Arabian Nights. On arriving, he purchased a cap which took his fancy, and jauntily set forth to explore the capital of the Czar's dominions. After his first day's sightseeing, he was greatly surprised to find in the pockets of his overcoat two strange purses, one of •them being very liberally filled. He marvelled greatly at his mysterious luck, and sallied out again next day. That evening wh.-n he returned to his hostel, he found in his pockets several more mines, and began to feel alarmed. Mae it vodka, or some new phase of “decadent memory”? He went to bed a perplexed and thoroughly sober German. Daylight, however, inspired freeh courage, and he decided to maintain a discreet silence respecting his unaccountable windfalls; and «o went forth again.

vaguely wondering whether Dame Fortune would multiply her favours. She did. But the accumulation of other people’s puiwes thoroughly frightened him. The Extra Cap. If it was not magic it meant trouble, and the consideration induced him to elucidate the mystery through the prosa io channel of the poUee. These astute officials put him through a searching examination, and hearing of the cap, they focussed their attention on its maker. The latter explained that the cap was of an exceptional kind. . A little while before a customer had furnished him with a piece of Scotch tweed, instructing him to fashion from the same fifteen caps of an identical pattern. On completing the order he found he had a piece of tweed left over, and of this he made an extra cap. being the one which the German had purchased. On the strength of this information a detective was delegated to shadow the German on his next day’s sight-seeing, and then the mystery of the “ magic cap" was fully cleared up. The detective saw various men lounge furtively up to the Teuton, and transfer something from their own pockets into his. Each of these gentlemen was promptly arrested, and in the course of the next few days a baker’s dozen was secured. They were members of a cleverly organised band of pickpockets, distinguished by a cap similar to the German’s, whom they had mistaken for a confederate.

When some time ago a smart constable in Peterborough, with an eye on promotion, sallied through the gate of a disused graveyard, and found a naked limb protruding from a tomb, he received a shock. Here was tangible evidence of a horrible crime, and forthwith with the aid of his lantern he began to investigate. But his sense of the fitness of things was/udely dispelled, when he discovered that he had merely unearthed the sleeping place of a tramp who -had been in the town some time, and whose nocturnal whereabouts had long puzzled the confraternity. Policeman's Luck.

Accident befriended two policemen who were searching for a thief in an express train between Barcelona and Valencia, and chance to enter a compartment occupied by a pair of eloping lovers, for whose apprehension a reward was offered. Supposing they had come at the instigation of the damsel’s mother, the gallant swain pleaded for leniency, and blurted forth the whole truth before he discovered his mistake. So in lieu of their anticipated capture those policemen returned to Barcelona in charge of a crestfallen youth and a contemptuous maid. It was not a grim tragedy which a Paris rag-picker Bghted on when he removed from one house a cumbersome bundle of rubbish and found tn it various human remains, including a skull and thigh bones. The seared gamin carried them to the nearest police station, and a determined inspector at once presented himself at the house to make inquiries. He was a trifle abashed to learn that he had become the recipient of the mortal remains of the high priest Diophta, who flourished in the land of the Nile 5000 years ago. After that lapse of time they were not, in commercial parlance, in the Cnk of condition, and this reason had duccd their collector to pass them over to the rag-picker with the honorarium of • franc.