The Family Circle

New Zealand Tablet, 16 December 1915, Page 61

The Family Circle

GOOD ADVICE. If the sharp weed springing Chokes our garden-bed, Never heed its stinging, Plant a. flower instead. Where the rose is growing Thistles cannot stray— Every flower that's blowing Keeps a weed away ! If the way seems weary, Cares about it throng, Just. to make it cheery Sing a snatch of song. Trouble finds no dwelling Where the lips are gay—Every song out-swelling Keeps a care away ! If some wish ungranted Brings perchance a frown, Why not smile undaunted, Smile it bravely down ? Shall a vain repining Darken all our day ? Every smile outshining Keeps a frown away! • —Exchange

THE CRIMSON RAMBLER.

Picture to yourself a garden of beautiful roses. The old gardener spout a great deal of time and trouble over his favorite and most beautiful rose, which was the hardest of all to train. He nailed it here, and nailed it there, and finally got it into subjection : but no sooner was it growing the right way than it began to fade and die. The poor old gardener lost patience with it after so much time and labor spent, so decided not to bother any more about it, saying to himself, ' Go your own way: I can do no more with you.'" Some time after, to his surprise, he happened to visit this part of the garden, which had been neglected, when lie discovered his favorite growing beautifully in wild confusion. A mass of lovely blooms had spread and covered an old shed : the sight was indeed good to look at. Whilst he stood thoughtfully gazing at this pretty picture, his young master came along, and exclaimed : What a perfect rose!' ' Ah, yes/ replied the old man; ' it's good to look at, but that is all.' ' What do you mean —what mora do you want Its beauty is beyond comparison,' said the younger man. ' Too true, sir : but the best part is missing;.' ' What is that V ' Why, sir, its sweetness and perfume, without which it is nothing ! I spent time and trouble over that rose in order to make it grow beautiful and sweet, but it would not be guided by me. It went its own way, and what is the result? One glance of admiration, and it is passed by, left to bloom alone: for no one wants the scentless flower. It reminds me of a young and wayward girl, who will not be curbed. She goes off on her own accord, is flattered, courted, admired, made much of; but how long does it last? A few short years, then she is like this —passed by for the purer and sweeter woman. Take this as a "lesson, sir, when seeking a partner in life. Choose • one who fills the air with Sweetness and goodness by her presenceone who will make you do the right thing ]by the very thought of her, no matter what temptation • comes your way — one who will be thought much of by •all, not for an hour or a day, but for all time, and to a sweetness clings when the bloom has faded •even when life itself has vanished to still feel her '(influence. v . - & v fi£ ;

Well, no doubt you’re right,’ said the younger man. ‘ I would never have thought of that, but for the future will be more careful in my selection of companions and friends, and remember that that which is most pleasing and beautiful to the eye is not always the best, and will never see or inhale the perfume of a rose without thinking of the lesson which this glorious “Crimson Rambler” has taught me.’—Exchange.

the LETTER AND THE spirit.

You must not go out of the gate this afternoon,’ said Mrs. Clements to her boy Tom, as she left him ’ Why ?’ asked Tom. ‘ Because mother says so. That’s enough for you to know.’ J

• ‘ But I like to play in the road,’ whined Tom. Yon must not, said his mother. ‘ Promise me that you will not go outside the gate while I am gone. I know I can trust you to keep your word.’ ‘All right, I promise,’ said the little boy, and he kissed his mother. But he kept thinking: Why can’t Igo out this afternoon? I often go outside the gate.’ He couldn’t think of anything else, and from the yard he could see only a little bit of road. ‘My, what s that terrible noise!’ he cried as something tore by on the road, leaving lots of dust after it, ‘ I never can see anything,’ grumbled Tom, and he jerked a marble out of his fingers so hard that it ran into the hedge. Tom dropped on his knees to get the marble and there back of a bush he saw a hole that a small boy could crawl through. And then didn’t Tom have a fight with himself! ‘Mother didn’t say “you must not go through the hedge,” she just said the gate,’ he told himself, but a queer little voice inside him said: ‘Mother didn’t know about that hole, and anyway she trusted you.’ 1 Not to go out the gate,’ answered lorn sullenly. I’ll just crawl through the hole for a minute.’ And so he did, and there wasn’t anything to be seen, except something shiny in the middle of the road. Tom went after it, and it was only a tin cover, but so bright that the little boy sat right down in the road and amused himself making faces in the shining tin. His face looked so funny m the tin mirror that Tom laughed out loud, and didn’t hear anything until something terrible came ripping down the road at an awful speed. The poor little boy shrieked and sprang to his feet, but the awful thing hit him such a blow that lie was thrown right over the fence into his own yard. Many hours later he woke up in a strange bed, but there was his own dear mother beside him, ‘ Oh, Tommy, Tommy!’ she cried, and you promised mother• not to go outside the gate! How could you be so disobedient?’

‘I wasn’t, mother,’ Tommy began eagerly. ‘I didn’t go through the gate— l crawled through the hole.’

His mother looked down at him sadly. ‘Do you remember that you asked me one day last week what was meant by the “spirit and letter of the law?”’ ‘ Yes’m. ’

‘ Well, my order about the gate was the letter of the law, but you broke the spirit of it by crawling through the hole. And you see the punishment is the same. I knew that the automobile race was going to be this afternoon. A bridge on the high road had broken through, so the cars would have to come either over our road, or the eastern road. I did not tell you because you would be ? too excited about the racers; and I thought I could trust your word.’ 1 ‘ I. won’t break my word again, mother,’ Tom promised. ‘I will always keep the spirit as well as the letter of the law. I wish I had minded that queer little voice that told me I wasn’t doing right.’

LEGAL STORIES.

An excellent story is told of Lord Chief-Justice Coleridge. For the benefit' of non-sporting readers, it should be explained that a, dog when exhibited »

said to be ‘on the bench ’or benched.’ At the trial of an action for damages for running over a sheep-dog, a winner of many prizes, counsel for the defendant was anxious to prove that the dog had had its and that the damages .should be nominal. Unfortunately, Lord Coleridge, who was trying the case, had dropped off to sleep, and the evidence was being wasted. Counsel’s one chance was to cat&e such a laugh in court as would wake the judge- so,, gradually raising his voice, he asked one of the plaintiff’s witnesses: ‘ls it not your experience as an exhibitor 3 that when an old dog has taken his place regularly on the bench for many years, he gets sleepy and past his work V .

Amid the roars of laughter which ensued Lord Coleridge woke up with a start, and judgment was eventually given for, the defendant. On one occasion Mr. Justice Hawkins, who always wore his hair close-cropped was on circuit in the South of England, and went for a country walk with a brother judge. Being thirsty, the two judges entered a wayside inn in the rear of which were two laborers playing skittles. They decided to join in the game, and each taking one of the players as a partner, entered into the game with spirit. Getting hot, Mr. Justice Hawkins took off his coat; getting hotter, he removed his hat. His lordship’s partner at once stopped playing. ‘Go on, my friend/ said Hawkins; ‘ why do you stop?’ ‘I don’t mind bein’ neighborly,’ replied the man, looking at Hawkins’s close-cropped head, ‘ but I’m hanged if I be a-goin’ to play skittles with a ticket-of-leave man !’

- Sir Frank Lockwood was once re-examining a client in regard to - various companies, a good many of which had been wound up. The Automatic Musical Instruments Company came up for notice—a company for utilising a kind of street-organ piano. 'That,' said Sir Frank, genially, ' had to lie wound up, anyway.'

A SUFFICIENT REASON.

Sir Arthur Chance, the famous physician, tells an amusing story, according to Mr. J. C. Percy, in his book, Bulls and , Blunders , about the Midland Great Western Railway Company, Amongst the many appointments Sir Arthur Chance holds is that of medical adviser to the above-mentioned company. Some years ago a cattle dealer got injured in a railway accident at Athenry through a mishap to the midnight train. In due course a writ was served upon the company, and Sir Arthur Chance was sent down to Westport to examine the patient. He found he was really very badly injured, and in his report to the company he not only said so, but strongly recommended immediate settlement.

The company" made an offer of a few hundred pounds, which was accepted right away. Knowing the love of the people of the West for litigation, Sir Arthur Chance was very surprised at the settlement of the case after the first offer. Some time afterwards he happened to find himself in Westport, so went to see the patient, and found him almost all right again. In course of conversation Sir Arthur said to him: ' ' So you took the first offer made by the railway company ' I did, sir.' And why ' Because, between you and me and the gate-post, Sir Arthur, the night of the accident I was travelling without a ticket.' * '

THOSE TASKS.

A task never grows, smaller and lighter by sitting down and lamenting that it must be done, and there is an old maxim that teaches us that a thing ‘ once begun is half done.’

A farmer friend of mine has a boy of fourteen years, named Billy, who is like a few other boys of my

acquaintance. .- His heart is heavy and a cloud imme-• diately overspreads his mental horizon when he is asked to make himself useful. c . ■ Billy,' said his father one day, when I was at the farm, ' why don't you go to work and hoe that patch of potatoes?' ."■'- \Tf Aw,' whined Billy, there's so many of them, I'll never get them hoed.' His father walked away, and I heard Billy exclaim in a tone indicating great mental distress: 'lt makes me sick to think about those old potatoes 'Why do you think about them, then I said, laughingly. ' I have to,' he replied, dolefully, with a sorrowful shake of the head. I've been thinking about them ever since I got up this morning.' ' How long, Billy, will it really take you to hoe them?' • - ' Well, at least an hour.' ' And you've been distressed about it ever since you got up V ' Well, I hate to hoe potatoes.' ' And you've been up a little more than five hours.' 'Well, ——' Billy began to grin, took up his hoe, and said, 'I never thought of that!' The potatoes were hoed in just forty minutes.

HE’LL BAY UP NOW.

Mrs. Jones kept a . boarding-house, and one day young Johnson came to her with several complaints. She listened in silence for a few moments, but as the young man waxed eloquent she lost her patience.

‘ Don’t 1 know every one of the tricks of your trade?’ said Johnson, with considerable heat. ‘Do you think I have lived in boarding-houses fifteen years for nothing ‘ Well,’ replied Mrs. Jones, icily, ‘I shouldn’t be at all surprised.’

CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE.

There had been an accident on the worst railroad in the United States.

The sole survivor of the wreck was sitting up in the hospital cot swathed in bandages. ‘ I suppose you’re going to sue the company for damages?’ said the friend at his bedside. ‘ No,’ said the damaged one. ‘ I shall do nothing of the kind.’

‘Why not? You’ve certainly got a clear case against, them.”

‘ Clear case, nothing ! Any intelligent jury in the world would bring in a verdict of contributory negligence. I ought to have known better than to travel on the wretched line.’

HOW TO DO IT.

,' In politics,' said the Member of Parliament, 'you must begin at the bottom of the ladder.' ' In what manner V ' Well as a rule, the first thing you do is to shake the ladder in an effort to dislodge the fellows ahead of you.'

PRESENT AND PAST.

Father ruefully gazed on his last shilling. ‘ Money has wings, and house rent makes it fly, he said. ‘ Yes/ said his 15-year-old son, ‘ and some houses have wings, for I’ve seen many a house-fly.’ ■_ ‘ You’re smarter than your old dad, maybe, my son, but I always thought that no part of a house except the chimney flue