INVERCARGILL JOTTINGS.

Mataura Ensign, Volume VI, Issue 256, 18 May 1883, Page 4

INVERCARGILL JOTTINGS.

(From onr own C.-rresponclent.) ! The tea controversy has raged here ; somewhat. Jt has been called a storm in a teapot. Some valiant patrons of the " cup that cheers," (that phrase of Cowper's has been quoted some, you bet) have described how they have soaked themselves in the liquor which, Dr Bromby says, produces rhuruaiisru. ' They are as brisk as fleas in March, fc they say, and as for clearness of mind, it would be hard to make them recognise their superiors. Others, , again, have experienced immediate relief from indigestion, <fee. upon giving up tea. The effect is that tea has fallen. Everybody who has suffered from any pain or discomfort between a bruised toe and a bald head blames tea. Scandal has almost wholly disappeared, and a threatened tea meeting is to be given up. All these things are safe symptoms that the tea scare is a lie. A true thing never makes such an impression. Witness the facts continually paraded about the effects of the cup that does ' inebriate.' This reminds me that at the door of tbe Courthouse ; at the door that leads to the K.M. Court, the District Court, and the Supreme Court, there is a sheet of tin stuck up with a hand pointing through a trap door in the fence and this legend, " This is the back way to Carroll's Hotel." I suppose ex-Con-stable Carroll is a wit and sees that tho back way to his hotel and the front way to the Courthouse are naturally related. " This way to the pit I" as I once heard a Puritan say, with emphasis, when passing the notice on a theatre door. Another hotel, up the North Eoad, is the district post office. This 1 should think is not lawful. True, it is a little store, separated by Bix feet from the bar of the hotel, that bears the inscription " Post Office." But the same store supports the lamp labelled * Hotel,' and the driver of Her Majesty's mail carries one bag into the bar and the other out of the bar. "Where are the teetotalers ? We have all heard with pain of the fire at Riverton which has destroyed a great deal of the rery best frontage in the main street of tbat snug little town. ; A local auctioneer "hajl.^a case in court the other day, whichp I fear, only !&owß a sample of the mean tricks which are played on the knights of the hammer. A fellow put property in the hands of the knight to be sold. but with high reserve. Knight finds a man who wants to buy, but wont give reserve. Owner learns this from the knight, interviews purchaser on the quiet, withdraws property from knight and sells it, saving commission — as he thinks. Knight wasn't born yesterday and so fe ches owner before beak. Beak allows commission $nd costs and knight gives a' guinea to hospital. 1 The Southland Farmers' Co-operative Association has at last, I think, got ja. good secretary and manager in the'-perV .s,on of Mr J. L. { ; I : Hioa^hk^tn^^^^§^^^ our nondescript ;, churches. ?, * One %il[ im? leading member^ has recently taken .'out an auctioneer's license. : This' is 'held' t6 be a very worldly and covetous pro ceeding which exposes the said member to undue temptation to lie; and swear. Another member is also under suspicion, but for what I have not been able to learn for certain-. But I Relieve it has been discovered that putting in false teeth is not allowable on the part of a lover of truth, as it is filling the, mouth with white lies. Also, it is : thought that riding a tricycle is a pre- j sumptuous attempt to set aside the laws of nature and put the human ' legs, to a use not originally contemplated. < May 12th, 1883.