In Lighter Vein

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 40, 3 October 1901, Page 18

In Lighter Vein

(By 'Quip.')

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

Two Patriots.

The two little 'nippers' who created such a seneation by walking from Invercargill to Dunedin — 140 miles — to see the Duke have been getting into the public eye again. Things had been dead slow and fiat and stale and unprofitable in the Southland capital — nothing exciting having happened since the last dog-fight except a letter or two from ' Buok ' and the coming- home of the troopers. This was not nearly enough to satisfy the adventurous longings

that babbled and flowed like imprisoned geysers in the patriotic breasts of oar two yoang hopef nis ;so they ' borrowed the loan ' of a boat and a package of fog signals, and a few other nnoonsidered trifles, when the owners weren't around. The last time they misbehaved they had kodak friends, newspaper men, Mayors in big gold neck-chains, publioans, policemen, aide-de-oamps, high-born ladies, and ' Bioh ' like people patting them on the heads, and telling them what good little boys they were to ran away from home and wring their parents' hearts with so much trouble and anxiety. There has been quite a run on crutches in Dunedin lince those philanthropic gentlemen have begun to realise to what an extent their legs hare been pulled by those patriotic boys. This time, instead of Royalty and nobility and wondering bourgeoisie, the embryo Hnok Finns had only a couple of prosy polioemen to run after them*

The Duke was the only one in the whole crowd who seems to have ' sized up ' these roving youngsters. When giving them his photograph he remarked that it was of suoh stuff that the British Army waa composed. H.R.H. knows how fondly the average Tommy loves a little loot. If these two youngsters were mine I should have illustrated them with ' cuts ' more profusely than the front pages of the Review of Reviews. If this had been done to them in the first place, Mr. Howie would still have his boat, and the Government would still have those fog-signals and sky-rockets handy to maim anybody that should happen to be about when the next batch of troopers returns. The two boys were sent by an unsympathetic magistrate to the Industrial School, where they oan spend their time regretting that they ever laid hands on such paltry things as a boat and a parcel of orackling explosives. Oh, how different everything would have been if they had only stolen the Water Tower !

Queer Meeting- Places. Mr. Hogg, M.H.R., delighted an audience the other evening by telling them of the queer placea in which he had addressed the free and independent electors of New Zealand. Mr. Hogg is a bit of a ' stye '-list as a speaker, but he is a stiil belter writer, and would make his mark in literature if he only stuck to his ' pen.' On one occasion, he said, he addressed a meeting in a gravel-pit ; at another time he wooed the coy electors in a saw-mill ; and on another occasion still, he made a railway goods-shed quake with his oratory. It was in the goods-shed that he had to blow out the candle and slip away in the dark to cave the railway authorities of the place from trouble. He left in such a hurry on this particular occasion that he went away without his hat and the vote of confidence. At a little place called Makuri, after he had addressed an open-air meeting, the bushwhackers carried him to the hotel, made him president of their club, treated him to sundry strata of violently assorted drinks, and wound up the entertainment with a wrestling contest, in which the village blacksmith performed (by comparison with the rest, I suppose) like a trained Hercules or a grizzly bear. The first part of the entertainment meant, of course, that the wily bushwhackers wheedled a couple of guineas out of Mr. Hogg for their olub — a couple of guineas, my good masters, because Mr. Hogg isn't a one-guinea-pig. The second part means that the blacksmith wai able to carry a heavier cargo of tangle-foot than the other men.

Not Unique. Mr. Hogg's experiences are not unique. In the spacious days of the Provincial Councils a Canterbury candidate once rattled off his promises of bridges and metalled roads and village pumps from the top of a hearse. (This, by the way, is somewhat reminiscent of an American elector who voted for the dead politician, Henry Clay, on the principle that if he couldn't have a live statesman, ' let us,' said he, 'by all means have a first-class corpse.') Onoe the curtain rose on a West Coaster who was preparing to open the flood-gates of his eloquence. But as his ill luck would have it, his supporters were few and far between, the rival candidate's crowd had packed the hall, and when our orator made his bow they greeted him ' rayther numerously ' with quartz specimens and discarded boots and efr?s that were at least as ' high ' in flavor as they were low in market value. He hastened through a window at the side of the stage in search of fresh air, found it, and, being pursued) k shinned up a tree like a chased tortoise-shell cat, and from his fresh point of vantage ' worked off ' his election promises to ' the Cof up. tnrned faces' that stood around him under ' the moon's unclouded grandeur.'

Mr. Hogg evidently never stood for an Irish constituency, otherwise we should have imagined that he waa tae candidate referred to by Mr. MacDonagh in one of his stories of Irish life and character. This candidate was visiting a doubtful supporter and was rejoiced to hear from the man himself that his vote was safe. 'Glad to hear it,' said the candidate ;- 1 thought you were against me.'

■ Sure, I was at first,' rejoined the peasant. ' Whin the other day ye called here, and stood by that pig-stye, and talked for half an hoar, ye didn't budge me an inch. Bat after ye was gone away, Bir, I got to thinkin' how ye reached yer hand over the rail and soratohed the pig's back till he lay down wid the pleasure of it. I made up my mind thin that whin a m%n was so sociable as that with a poor fellow-orathure, I wasn't the boy to vote agin him.'