Comments: Common and Caustic.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 29, 22 September 1911, Page 9

Comments: Common and Caustic.

By ?' GASS!US OASIUS." Rat traps are baited with mouldy cheese; man traps with the children's .bread. _In Pennsylvania, there is no Act forbidding a man to marry his mother-in- j law.; There never has been any man i silly enxjugh to want to. i .'.*■■.* * The workers by their votes place in their masters', bands all the powers of j government,-, and then feel angry and reseoiMul -when, they apply said powers to their own ,earjitalis'tic int-ere&ts. : Royalty is but .... a 'mask of splendour, behind which "the cruel eyes and envenomed £re concealed. >*;£ ' V'" .'"'.'.-' '- Paris hasn't followed the Scriptural i-njunction .to furn ' its swords into pruning iiooks, -but it has done thenext best;.: It. has melted 300 tons of discarded, cannon into pennies.' • *,".. ■ ,"■/> •• ■ * What is the use of Government own-r ership of railways, mines, etc., while we have private .ownership of the Govern.me.nt? "The Worker ,, is opposed? to the private ownership of Government. * * * •A statistician has discovered that the j-average woman, carries from 50 to . 60 miles of hair on he? head. He Isbusy now trying to demonstrate how many miles of it get into the domestic soup in a year. * * * The employers in Australia and in. New Zealand a,re protectionists in their attitude towards the products of labor, nevertheless they believe implicitly in free trade in labor. * «- * The power that holds its courts in the stock exchanges, and issues its edicts from the couirting-houses of. the cities, sways the king in hia palace as treil as the proletarian in his slum. * * * "I think I have discovered a system to beat the bookies," remarked Mr. Gunson, looking over the top of his morning paper. ''What you need now," replied Mrs. Gunson, "is a system to boat the carpets." Th© rer mainder of the morning repast was consumed in silence. a * * .Belgium found out some years ago that it was cheaper to give a man work than to give him charity. , x * * .The Pope has issued a "Motu Proprio," reducing the number of Feast Days to be observed by devout Catholics. He give-s as a reason: — Modern life is becoming daily .more expensive,, consequently those who have to work for their Hying find the constant interruptions caused by the too numerous Saints' Days a hindrance to theJp labor. Quite right. It takes the worker working all his time to get enough to live on during ordinary daj's without allowing for feasts. And has not th© Church for ages taught that "enough is as good as*a feast"—for the worßers. These Johnnies have always seen to it that they and theirs have been well provided in basket and store, * * * But, to use the words of the Hol.v Father, "what of those who don't "have to work for their living? ,. Ah. well, they can afford still to gorge themselves in honour of the saints and to the glory of Godl Funny, isn't it? * •» * A Home exchange informs us that the members of the British Parliament "managed to get outside of 5500 quail, 10 barons of beef, 100 sirloins of beef, 150 silversides of beef, 2500 fowls, 60 whole carcases of lambs, 10 hams, 80 tongues, scwt. of salmon, of fillet soles, 24 oases of kippers, 30 dozen haddocks, 1200 eggs, 500 kidneys and Bcwt. of..strawberries at the House on Coronation Day." Keir Hardie knew what h® was talking about when he called them "well-fed beasts." * - * * More than two thousand years ago Aristotle said: "Man is a political , animal." One canaiot help tho suspicion < that this was the ancient but polite way of calling man an ass. it- * * When Victor Be-rger made his first speech in the U.S. Congress he w"as subjected to a long cross-fire of questions from all sides of the House. Some of these gave the first' Socialist Congressman the very opportunity Socialist speakers like. Some members, in the form of questions, corroborated one or other of Borger's charges. " Mr. Fowler (Illinois) asked: "Mr. Berger asserts that the capitalist to-day thinks more of his property than he doss of his laborer or his laborer's family. I was at a coal mine in my district last summer where there had beenV£n explosion, and a man was &en»t down to investigate. On his return the first question the manager asked him was, 'Are there.any mules killed?' Is that what Mr. Berger means in sizing up the situation P ,,