"ALL HANDS BELOW!”

Dunstan Times, Issue 561, 17 January 1873, Page 3

"ALL HANDS BELOW!”

4. C . . f H- b 5 - A good story is told-of a parrot who had always lived onboard a ship:.but who escaped at some seaport, and took refuge in a oh ui ch. Soi n afterwards the congregation assembled, and the .clergyman began preaching, saying that there was no virtue in hem! that every one ofthyuiAVould be lost unless they speedily repenteiL ;Just as "he uttered the sentence, up spoke the- parrot 'roin his hiding-place;—“ All hands below!” To say that “all hands’’; were startled would be but a mild way <rf putti g it. The oeculiar voice, from its -unknown source, bad much more effect uponijthßia-.than the parson’s voice ever had. i|-e waited a moment. and 'hen a shade or: two paler, he repeated the warning. “AH ban Is below!” ■againrang out from somehere. Tho preachd started from his pulpit, and looked anioualy around, inquiring if anybody had spoken. “All hands below'” was the only reply, at which tne panic stricken congregation got up, and a moment after they all bolted for tho doors, tbs preacher trying his best to bo first, and during the time the mischievous hird.kept. up- his yelling:—“ All hands below!” Tharewaa an old woman who was lame, and could not get out so fast asAhejest, and in a very short tifee she was 'eft entirely alone. Just as sire was about to bobble out the parrot flew down, and alighting on her shoulder, yelled in her ear, “All hands below!”—“No, no. Mister Devil, shrieked the old woman, “you can't moan me. I don’t belong here. I go to the other church across the way.”