NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1097, 23 January 1912, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

Everyone is aware, remarks the North Otago Times, that the Oamaru district is a “ dry ” one, although farmers this season may feel inclined to dispute the assertion. The drought that we wish to refer to, however, has a direct application to the difficulty in obtaining ardent spirits. This difficulty was ingeniously overcome in the southern part of the district last week. An individual whose visits to the Kakanui River could only have been for “mixing” purposes, set out on a round ot the neighbourhood at night time, carrying the story with him that certain persons had been taken ill, and that only a drop of whisky could save their lives. He varied his story by giving the names of several different persons. In this way he gathered four or five bottles of whisky, and is now no doubt sitting behind a convenient hedge engaged in the congenial occupation of making one long carouse out of his duplicity. He has, however, exhausted his method of relieving the drought that afflicts him.

They have been having a “wowser” hunt down Christchurch way. Many good men, and women, too, have been in pursuit of the interesting fantasy. One man writing to the Lyttelton Times says : During my “hunt” I met an individual feeling towards home that did uot possess many attractions. It was evident he had lor a good while spent his money for “that which is not bread.” I made enquiries, and was assured he was not a ‘wowser.’ A lew days later there staggered across my patn a gasping individual with a deep gash beneath one eye, besides several smaller wounds, the blood trickling down his coat. Again I enquired, but was assured he was no ‘wowser.’ I have the misfortune to live near an individual who indulges so freely in “Dutch courage” that he comes home at night to raise Cain for his wife and children and fill the air with the most obscene expressions, but the one thing he thanks his stars for is that he is not a “wowser.” I turned my attention to a gang of not over intelligent hoodlums who seem to have no occupation besides that of expectorating at a street corner and indulging in veiled obscenity, only to find they were not “wowsers.”