FROM OTHER PAPERS.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 22 June 1901, Page 4

FROM OTHER PAPERS.

A plea for early closing on Saturday evenings : —A Masterton clergyman complained on a recent Sunday evening that whilst on Sunday night lie could nearly always get a “full house,” the church was nearly empty in the mornings. He partially accounted for this state of affairs by the late hours that the shops arc kept open on Saturday nights. He urged that the half-holiday should he observed on Saturdays, and that wages should be paid on Fridays, Perhaps after all the remedy might be worse than the disease. If wages were paid on the Friday there might be nothing left for the collection plate on the Sunday.

At a recent Borough Council meeting at Timaru, a councillor volunteered to give an instance of the system of rating in vogue (says the Morning Post). He said that he had purchased 3s worth of paint and had painted his house with it. As soon as he had done this the valuation of his place had been increased by £96. He had taken his case to the Assessment Court, and tho assessors were so satisfied that he had been put to a great injustice that they reduced his valuation by £5 more than he asked them to do Moral — Don’t paint your house before the valuator has flnisncd his job. At Ivonigsberg, in Prussia, the Supreme Court has made a curious award. Five years ago a young girl was promised £25 by a friend of her father if she permitted him to kiss her, the money being payable when she came of age. Having attained her majority, her claim was repudiated, and an action at law commenced. The court awarded tho full amount, holding that the claim was not “ contra bonas mores.’’ What an nngallant person he must have been to forget his promise, and what a cute German girl she was to remember it. Serve him right not to make rash promises.

The Taranaki Herald relates a good story with regard to the Teachers’ Salaries Commission. The chairman of that body had occasion to ask the chairman of the Taranaki Education Board whether certain schools were not manned by teachers receiving salaries of less than £l5O a year. “ Manned," interposed the member for Eangitiki, “ why, more than half of them are taught by women." The joke had scarcely been realised when Mr T. S. Weston naively remarked that “ under the New Zealand statutes males are meant to embrace women." Our old friend Thomas Shailer must have been caught napping for once, or he certainly would not nave said that the New Zealand statutes laid it down as a fundamental principle that “ males were meant to embrace women.”

It' has been found that the work of preparing the defence organisation of the Australian Commonwealth cannot be advanced further until a commandant has been appointed. The Federal Prime Minister has therefore cabled to the War Office asking that an Imperial officer of high qualifications may be selected for the post. It is proposed to pay a salary of from £2OOO to £2500. It is believed Government expressed the desire that the position should be offered either to Major-General Pole-Carew or MajorGeneral Smith-Dorrion.

The Paris telephone girl must not say “ Hullo!” any more. That is too simple and easy, so the administration has given instructions that in future the “demoiselle du telephone ” must reply to those who ring her up : “I’m listening to you.” If she should be so forgetful as to pronounce the banished disyllable she will bo reprimanded and punished by a fine. Now Zealand lady telephonists had bettor take warning, not that they ever use such an expression as “Hullo!”

A gentleman recently calling at a shipping company's office in Nagasaki, Japan, found the whole place deserted. The manager and stall had gone mushroomhunting. Evidently the Japs like mushroom hunting. What a happy state must exist in Japanese shipping circles.

Says John Fox in Scribner’s Magazine: —“ A feud leader, who had about exterminated an opposing faction and had made a good fortune for a mountaineer, while doing it, for he kept his men busy getting out timber when they weren’t lighting, once said in all seriousness; “ I have triumphed agin my enemies time and time agin. The Lord’s on my side, and I gits a better and better Christian every year. ’’ A preacher riding down a ravine, came upon an old mountaineer hiding in the bushes with his rifle. “ What are you doing there, my friend ?” “ Eido on, stranger, ’’ was the easy answer. “ I’m a-waitin’ for Jim Johnston, and with the help of the Lawd I’m goin’ to blow his head off. ” Evidently the people in the Western State must have some peculiar views as to what constitutes a good Christian.

Sir Peter O’Brien, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, has been popularly known to his countrymen as “ Peter the Packer ’’ for a number of years. He has always taken the sobriquet in good part, whatever impression to the contrary may be formed by recent episodes in court. Epigrams about Sir Peter, which are now the order af the day in Dublin, recall the monumental couplet about another Judge whose Christain name was Peter, and wrote verse :

“ Hera lies the preacher, judge, and poet Peter. He broke the laws of God and man and metre.”

They know how to swear in some parts of the world, you may even hear profane language on the wharf sometimes but very rarely, for as a rule our wharf-man are the politest of beings, but even if they should over happen to raise their voices it would be hopeless for them to attempt to rival India as the following clipping shows :

A professor of languages, some few years ago, on returning from India, remarked upon the paucity of objectionable phrases amongst the British working classes when compared with the abundance supplied by the Orientals of similar rank. To prove this, he gives a case which came under his own notice. Ho had dismissed a man servant for dishonesty, and next morning, at six o’clock he sought an interview with his former master. He flourished a carving knife, with which he plainly intended to emphasise his remarks. When ho found it it impossible to gain admission he sat under the window and the “swearing process began, lie curre 1 the professor along the genealogical tr o back to the first ancestor of his race. Then he dwelt upon every detail of his nmtomy, from the top of his bead to the end of his toes. ‘ For three consecutive hours ho sat and swore,” says the professor, “without ones repeating a phrase.” Whilst travelling on the Underground Railway in London a party of working men entered the same compartment, and interspersed their remarks with the commonest forms of “swearing.” The professor politely asked them to desist, whereupon he was told to mind his own business. He at once commenced to translate into English some specimens of Eastern oaths which lie had heard a Calcutta merchant’s servant use to a missionary’s servant. The men cleared from him as if he had the plague, and at the next station sought another compartment.” Even Dr Johnston who confounded a Billingsgate fish woman with his nine parts of speech, would have to take -a back seat.