MR ISRAELS AND THE CROQUET GROUND.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 62, 13 March 1878, Page 4

MR ISRAELS AND THE CROQUET GROUND.

(From the New York Times.) Mr Israels was a converted Jew, who, after being strictly examined with pork chops and other conclusive tests, was found to have fully renounced the errors of Judaism, end was therefore duly licensed es a minister of the Freowill Predeßtinarian Church. In July last he visited a popular summer resort, and took lodgings at a quiet boardingbouse wish twenty-three other ministers of aseortpd denominations. Now, it so happened that there was but one place on the boarding-house premises which ■was suitable for a croquet ground. In order that all the boarders might play at once, no lees than four sets of arches were placed up<-n the croquet ground. Of course this had its disadvantages, since the whole ground was covered with arches, but it was the only place which would enable the twenty-three ministers and their families (n simultaneously partake of the balls and mallets which cheers, but does not inebriate. Rev. Mr Israels was, at the time in question, paying his addresses to an excellent widow lady, who was also an inmate of the boarding-house, end on the evening of his arrival the pair started out for a quiet moonlight, walk. There was not very much moonlight, and the minister, perceiving a nice level piece of ground, led his companion (hither, ignorant lhat it was the croquet ground. By some singular chance, he actually managed to reach the centre of the space before his foot Bfryck an arch. This immunity, however, could not have been expected to laßt. Suddenly Mr Israels pitched wildly forward upon his face, uttering at the fame time a loud reference to father Abraham. Scarcely had he picked himßelf up when the next arch caught him and threw him headlong, dragging the widow wiih him. It /was then, as a subsequent investigation showed, precisely seventeen minutes paßt 9 o'clock. For the next thirtyfive minutea-the unhappy pair fell over arches, with scarcely two' minutes intermission. Their ufmosUfforts would not enable them to escape from that terrible croquet ground. In whatever direction they turned an arch lay iv wait for them ani! never once failed to catch them. Sometimes ih«-y fell separately, ami at hlihs they execute--! & combined fail. It is Mr Israel's opinion that (here wt-re at least seventeen thousand aiclies, and ttint he did not miss one of ihem. rohahly they would have cousicued to fa'l till night bad not the lan Moid, alarmed by tlieir groans, hasit-ned fo th«ir relief wish a lantern, and pulled up sufficient arches ;to form a Bale path for their escupe. The worst of it was that the widow instantly quarrelled wiih Mr Israels, ou the ground that their disaster whb all his fault, while tbe reverend gentleman insisted that the arches had been wil. iully set out by the other ministers to gratify their fiendish hatred of the children of Israel, and thereupon renounced Christianity and embraced one of Mr Frothingham's newest religions.