A KALATHUMPIAN.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 95, 19 September 1874, Page 3

A KALATHUMPIAN.

At a meeting at Omeo the other day Mr Perry asked Mr Jack if he were a Kalathnmpian, a question that might well puzzle a stranger, though the term is well understood at Omeo ; where it originated in this wise :—A well-known official in this district who commenced colonial life as a digger, had for his first two mates an Irish Doctor, who has long since quitted the pick and shovel to follow his profession, and. the

erratic son of an English Church dignitary who, like parsons sons, ran wild, and had no great respect for religion. They lived in a hut belonging to the doctor, known from its airy construction as the " bird cage." To this hut, on Sunday morning, hied a worthy country woman of the doctor's, who had been a few months married, and wished to consult the medico upon a delicate subject, but it being the turn of the parson's son to be hut keeper, she found the doctor and his other mate absent, and Master Dan, who was a bit of a wag, in possession of the premises. After a little conversation on general subjects, the good larly, fancying perhaps ihat on such an important and critical occasion, she would be safer in the hands of one of her own faith, inquired in the blandest terms if Dan could inform her whether his mate, the doctor, was a Catholic ? whereupon Dan, putting on a serious face as became so solemn an occssiou, replied, " I think not, inarm." I believe the doctor is of the same religion as myself." " And what might be that Mr W.?" "A Kalathumpian, inarm." "And what's a Kalathumpian ? Well, bless me, I've heard of several religious sects with strange names—Quakers, Shakers, and such like—but I never heard of a Kalathumpian before. May Ibe permitted to ask what you believe in ?" "Oh yes, marm," replied Dan, "we believe in three things—grog, gals, and gold." This is the religion of a good many others, I fancy. A witty clergyman to whom this anecdote was related, called it not inaptly, " The Digger's Trinity."