In Lighter Vein

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 34, 22 August 1901, Page 18

In Lighter Vein

(By ' Qdip.')

»•» Correspondence, newspaper ' cuttings, etc.. intended for this department l should be addressed ' Quip,' N.Z. Tablet Office, Dunedin, and should reach this oflico on or before Monday morning.

Influenza. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. And nature has laid her fingers with a stepmotherly touch upon us in New Zealand this Spring in the influenza epidemic that is paying domiciliary visits in our towna and cities now. Some eleven years ago Dr. Jolles, of Vienna, sepa. rated the ' pesky critter ' that is the cause of all the trouble. He describes it as ' a little creature wearing a hat like a bishop, but otherwise indistinguishable from the microbe which produces pneumonia.' They seem, in fact, to be nearly related, and often work in double harness. Would to heaven that Dr. Jolles, when he shook salt on the creature's tail, did not hand it over, hat and all, to the Austrian representative of Jack Ketch ! For, alack I it has taken up lodgings in my breast — ' rayther numerously,' as Ar tern us Ward would say, and another colony has Bettled in my brain-box — the kind, I suppose, that . . . ' Take lodgings in a head, That's to be let unfurnished.' I hereby offer my lodgers to anybody who cares to call to White Island, and I have no objection to throw in gratia the following directions by which you may know when they have settled down to work and made themselves at home in your anatomy :—: — * • If you're sore To the core, With aching bones, And husky tones When you speak, And you're weak In the knees, And yon sneeze, And often cough Your head near off, And you note That your throat Feels quite raw, And your jaw Feels as if

You'd got a " biff." And dull pains Vex your brains, Then yon've caught it, You have got itIt's the grip. 1 If you feel The heat of steel O'er your frame Like a flame, Till you burn And you yearn For ohunks of ice At any prioe, Then like a flash The shivers dash From head to feet — A chill complete — And you shake, And you quake, And there's desire For a fire, And something hot Right on the spot To quickly drink, And yon think Bight there and then You'll never be warm again, Then you've caught it, You have got it — It's the grip. 1 It's in the air, It's everywhere — The microbe of the grip Is on another trip, And up and down Through all the town, By night and day It Becks its prey, And it'B the fad If you are sad, Or even mad, Or if you sneeze. Or cough or wheeze, Or feel too warm, Or chills alarm, To wear a look of grim dismay And hoarsely say : " I've caught it, I've got it — It's the grip ! " '

Only a Controversy. Bartle's friend Hogan was a ' mimber of the force ' in Auckland for three days and eleven hours. He Bpent moat of the daylight hours of his brief apprenticeship asleep against a lamp-post in a quiet part of Queen street. But during his ' career ' — as he proudly called it— he heard two police court cases, one the trespass of a bantam fowl, the other a charge of ' sauce an' batthery.' He had never Been ' th' inside iv a coort' before, and he has not Been it since. But the insight there given him into the law has left him ever since with the illusion fast anchored in his brain that he is a walking monument of legal lore, fit to teach the Lord Chief Justice and give points to Cook and Blackstone and all their later following.

A lawyer seldom comes to mar the beautiful landscape of White Island. But when he cornea he stays at Bartle's, and Hogau never misses such an opportunity of airing his erudition. Just before the influenza and his impish half-brother the gout laid me out, so to speak, on the field of fame fresh and gory, I dropped in casually to the White Island Hotel to get the right time — or something else. I found Hogan inside the bar and the lawyer outside. Hogan was laying down the law and emphasising every point with a thundering thump that set the glasses dancing in a drunken waltz all over the counter. 'Be the law iv the land,' said Hogan, ■ thei Financial Statemint should a been submitted to the May'rs iv Dunaidin, Christchurch, Wellin'ton, an' Anckland before bein' tould to a mother's Bon iv the mimbirs iv the House. An' moreover, be Act i T Parliamint every volunteer should be up for (manslaughter. I see no difference in larnin' to turn a man in a oollander wid & Maxim gun an' relievin' him iv hia sowl be pluggin' him behind th' ear wid a yard iv lead pipe. It's red murdher whichever way, an' accordin' to law as I read it every wan iv em Bhould be up for manslaughter.'

The man of red tape protested that these were absurdities, not law, and demanded to know where he had ever come across such rubbish. 'Is it where did I oome acrass it ? ' said Hogan. ' I read it in the Dog Registration Act, Vie. seven, ohapter seventeen, verse twenty-wan. Isn't it in the Disaised Wife's Widow Bill, skeddle two hundert an' seventy 'leven ? Where did I find thim Axe iv Parliamint ? Is that what ye're axin' me ? Was it in law-books an' statchoos 1 sayß ye. Divil a bit, says I. D'ye think I'd be wattlm' me time saroliin' f'r law in law-books an' planther figgers 1 I found 'em in books that's above suspicion ; I found 'em in the multiplication table an* in th' back iv Stone's BWectlCry f'r 1874— 0r 1784, I don't 'xactly disremember which, but it's wan or t'other if it ain't both, an' in any case it's there or thereabouts, an 4 if ye say another word, 'pon me sonkins I'll import the JD'recth'ry itself an' show that if it's not there it's prob'ly somewhere else. Besides, don't I renumber the time I 'rested a man at th' Thames for oommittin' ahuioide be takin' away his own life, an' the coroner said, says he, " Gintlemin iv the jury," says he, " this corpse," says he, " is on'y a dead Chinaman," says he, " an' yell on'y elect half yer usual fee," says he. An' what about the Contentious Disaises Act, volume 12 ? an' eh-pleurisy-unum an' a-poster-on-yer-eye ? [He meant c pluribus unum, and a posteriori. — Quip.] That's thrue anyway, bekase it's Latin. I heard the Judge say it when he was on the circus, an' besides I read it on my insurance policy. I haven't got an insurance policy, but it's on it anyway.' The lawyer contended that all this was not evidence and that it proved nothing. 'I know it don't,' said Hogan, * but it don't prove anything else, anyway.' And the glasses reeled and danced as his broad palm fell like a Nasmyth hammer on the counter. * Just then Bartle entered. ' Are ye argufyin' about law, as usual,' said he, 'or is it thayology ye're af ther ? Law? Well, Hogan, I of'en tould ye yer a failure in them kinds iv argument. Ye know too little law to argue agin a lawyer, an' ye know too much iv yer catechism to start a conthroversy agin religion. Every man an' woman an' colleen an' gosßoon on White Island knows that thayology — I mane, iv coorse, Catholic thayology — is the wan thing in all creation that ennybody is beßt fit to argufy agin whin they don't know a ha'porth about it Yer style o' thumpin th' counther '11 do f'r that soart o' thing, f'r ye brok two iv me best glasses into a million iv smithereens. Yer argumints is not worth a thraneen in law or raison, but in a conthroversy agin Popery they'd be sound — more sound nor sinse, Hogan. But, Hogan agra, before ye start on that lay, forget your catechism an' lam to Bay " Fee-faw-fum " wid a bcotch accint. " Fee-faw-fum "is a good argumint — whin all the others are bankrupt or d yn mited.'