A CURIOUS CASE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 312, 12 June 1875, Page 3

A CURIOUS CASE.

The Riverine Herald says that a curious case was heard lately at the Police Court. A selector at Mount Hope named Morissey had a sura of money in the Bank of Victoria, and one day a friend, John Larkins by name, paying him a visit, the conversation turning on Morrissey’s defective education, the latter stated that although he could sign his name he was totally ignorant of every other letter in the alphabet, either in typography or caligraphy. Thereupon Larkins requested a specimen of his friend’s handwriting, and producing the blank form of a Bank of Victoria cheque, Morrissey was induced to form his sign-manual to the bit of paper, which, as he stated in the witness-box, he was under the impression Larkins had destroyed. Subsequently, he ascertained, on squaring accounts at his bank, that the blank cheque which he had signed had been duly filled in for the sum of ten pounds, and duly paid by the bank. The Bench committed Larkins for trial for forgery.

SPEECH BY A MEMBER OF A SCHOOL BOARD. (Manchester Guardian.) Some time age the Educational Department issued an order calling on a rural township not a hundred miles from Macclesfield to provide school accommodation for the township, and five persons were elected to form a school board. At a meeting held on Monday night the chairman remarked that infants in the town would be the greatest difficulty the board would have to deal with. They had to provide for infants even though they could not if under five years of age compel them to attend school. “Then,” said a member, “the children munna be gotten. (Laughter.) If you go up to ’s; he has a housefu’. Go a bit further, to ’s; he has a whole roomfu’. Go still further on, to ’s; nay, mon, he hasabarnfu.’ (Laughter.) But yin may laugh. Go on to ’s; mon, he has a perfect little regiment of little ones. (Great laughter,) D it they are running about in lots, throwing their legs in the air, playing I spy, bo-peep in ditch holes and hen roosts, an’ feedin’ on oat-cake, bacon, and plum pudding.” (Renewed laughter.) The speaker seemed to enjoy the merriment he caused, slapping his knees and raising his voice to set off his rhetoric to the greatest advantage. The chairman, in alluding to another subject, said they were powerless to act as to school accommodation until a certain school trustee arrived at home. “But,” the previous speaker added, “win these chaps at the top shop (the Education Department) stand our humbug ? (Laughter.) Win they let us get out o’ the scrape if we should get into it ? One thing is certain—th’ children maun be educated. ”