LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1640, 20 February 1886, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

; Mr Isac ' Selby the ; Frceth ought orator,; ; will lecture m \hb Lyceum on SunV. day evening, Evplution, or Darwin and Moses." •" [ ■"■ ' '. McCracken read m thq paper ione evening, " Don't' forget to praise your wife,. A word of praise from her husband i'B-W6rth inof« to a woman than a mine of gold." " Pretty good idea," thought he\ looking up from ,;his paper at his. better half, who sat rocking, the baby. "I'll begin; at once," and he said !*. You are looking remarkably well this evening, my" dear." The lady looked up suipiciously and said ; 'fYdii must not think of going out to the lodge this even irig, Mr>McCrabken ;jyou krio^v how sick you were next morning the . last time you went." '■ ' ■ The paragraph whice has been going the round of the metropolitan papers . hefided " '^Ausiraliah "Federation " is -docidedly- misleading.' If it v were true . it would be good news indeed, but then unfortunately it is not ; for the federaf. tion question is not of Australia, bnt only of a part of it. An Australian federation comprising Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia, and WesttAustraHa,' jbut leavings put. New South Wales and New Zealand, is something like a federation of the United Kingdom minus Ireland ari*d the middle of England. The probable abstention of New, South Wales and New • Zealand was (as we have all along pointed out) the great danger m legislating on the gubject at this moment ; federation .jypuld da no good, but by generating had blood it might dp' a great deal of harm.— Pa// "Mall Gazette. j;1 Tlie origin of the word "■ loafer " has, been adopted by Bartlett m his "DfcI tionary of Americanism." An , . old Dutchman, settled m New York, ac-, quired a large fortune. He Had an onlydaughter, and a young American fell m love with her. The father forbade him m the house, but (he daughter encourag-' ed him. Whenever the old merchant saw the lover about the premises, he used to say jt.d his daughter, V there i.s ( that ,' lofejr ' pf : yours, the idle,! good- 4 for-nothing." &c, and so, an idle: man, banging abouti came to be calle'd -k '■ lofer ;' ho\v the lettejt 1 a' trot into the word is not known. }