A MARVELLOUS JOKER

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1059, 20 June 1912, Page 3

A MARVELLOUS JOKER

The controlling head of our esteemed Levin contemporary is a “rare clock’’ in the newspaper world. Phrenologicaily, his bump of imagination is marvellously abnormal, and his gurglings and stoggy jokes would be strong meat for “Lots 0’ Fun.” His hallucinations concerning Foxton are perhaps among his best efforts. We reproduce the following result of a brain storm which appeared as a leading article in Tuesday’s issue. Here it is :

“When Foxton Borough Council, some twelve months ago, had its second excursion in search of water, this journal warned the Shannon folk that nothing enduring would result from the cut:ng. Two years ago the good p.- . of Foxton got anxious about 'water, and they induced Levin Borough Council to spend a lot of time and some money iu preparing plans and estimates of cost for an extension to Foxton of the Levin water mains. The estimate and details were supplied, but the Foxton Borough Councillors decided to erect a municipal public hall and put their watery trust in Foxton’s unparalleled rainfall. The hall was built and a permanent picture show arranged. Evidently the councillors were pleased and stirred by the moving pictures ; so much so that they resolved to emulate the rough-riders of the films, and become cross-country equestrians (we almost had written equestriennes !) and seek out adventure and water. It was tallyho for Shannon, then ! and behold staid William Henry Gee and Plain Bill Em, and divers others of Shannon’s leading citizens leading the Foxton adventurers adown the precipitous places and along the razor-backed ridges to where the crystal fluid of which Shannon is justly proud has its source. “Very good ; very, very good” remarked the Foxton Borough Councillors. It was a perfect place and a most suitable, they said ; and like the municipal Lotharios they were, “they loved and rode away.” So far they have not been back ; but the local Herald recorded, some weeks later, that the council iu ordinary session had considered the report of the council that went on an excursion—and the council at home had decided to hang the question up for twelve months. That annual period has now elapsed, we notice ; so the good folk of Shannon may look for another incursion of strange folk from the river flat, with hair all a tangle with tow, and eyes keen to spy out combinations of oxygen and hydrogen. Once again, therefore, we repeat our warning to the Shannon folk not to be misled by these municipal philanderers. They have their municipal hall and their municipal moving pictures and their immovable public debt and their bountiful rainfall and their rusty tanks and fifty-year-old houses, and so long as they get their annual excursion they will feel the need of nothing else.”