A“BAYLEY”STORY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1865, 17 August 1918, Page 3

A“BAYLEY”STORY.

HINT FOR THE LIQUOR TRADE,

Speaking at a public meeting in Mastcrton the other night, Mr Bayley, of Winnipeg, said that it was told of a certain town that a certain undertaker had not as much business as he wanted, and was a little hard-up. One day an old man was found, badly battered, dead on the railway line. He thought it looked like the fathfer of a rich man who lived about fifty miles away. He telegraphed to the rich man, and got a wire saying that he was coming to the town. He therefore procured the finest clothes for the corpse, bound up his face, and put him in a most expensive coffin. The rich man came, and said, “Yes, I think that is my father. Just take off his face cloths until I have a better look.” The undertaker did so, and the man’s jaw dropped and showed a few old teeth. The rich man said, “My father had no teeth; it can’t be my father,” and walked away. The undertaker jerked the corpse out of the fine coffin, and enclosed it in one of the cheapest sort, and said, “You old fool, if you had only kept your mouth shut you might have had a decent funeral. (Laughter.) “So, I say to the Liquor Trade in New Zealand,” said the speaker, “they are offering you four and a-lmlf million pounds. For goodness sake keep your mouth shut and take it, and we will give you a decent funeral, but when your funeral comes we will bury you face downwards, so that the more you scratch the sooner you well get to hell.” (Laughter.)