Haying v. Maying

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 277, 21 October 1905, Page 12

Haying v. Maying

On a time I went a-Mayin'g, Long ago, When much better I'd been haying, Don't you know ; For the maiden tihat I Mayed with, That I walked and talked and strayed with, My old heart she took and played with — She did so. If I hadn't gome a-Mnying, I/ong ago, But, instead, had srone a-haying, Don't you know, Then the hay I would have hayed with I could' use it now to trade with. And to win another maid with — I could so. * • • Three Js.P. sat on a Southern Bench the other day to hear a somewhat important case. It was, at any rate, important enough to attract a large crowd, and several lawyers were engaged. During the address of one lawyer, he was handed a telegram. He opened it, and exclaimed : "Well, FU be blowed'! Hobbyhorse has won the Flipflap Handicap!" The presiding J.P. looked up, and flushed. "Mr. Deeds," he exclaimed, with tremendous severity, "are you not aware that this is a Magistrate's Court, ajid tbaifc these irrevelaat flippancies are calculated! to bring the tribunal into contempt 1" The lawyer apologised. "Very well, Mr. Deeds," said His Worship, "but don't let it occur again ! By the way, was Ma/rtingale anywhere in the running?"

Heie as a queer advertisement. It occur* in Auckland "Herald" . — "Public notice. — John Negrescu, wood-carv-ing manufacturer, opposite Newton Post-office, as translating his name from .its date, and will sign on all occasions instead of Jokn Negrescu, John Black. — September 29th, 1905." There is also a Mr. Black in Wellington whose patronymic begins with "Ivan" and ends with VoiMsky, with a lot of 'alphabet in between. • • • But, thus is also rather queer, and is from the "Herald" likewise : — "Matrimonial. — Gentleman, aged 355, would like to correspond 1 with lady or widow with small means, view to above. Strictly genuine. — Apply 'Genuine,' General Post Office." Giddy old man. He ought to have been resting permanently for two hundred and! eighty-five years, instead of inviting unrest like this. Note that he wants "a lady or widow," the presumption being that a widow is not a lady. * * * The following is an extract from a letter received by a business man from a memiber of a German firm : — "Please receive my thanks for sam as well as for two nice post^cards by which I was much pleased. I hope to be soon favoured with another, perhaps such a one who represents a native of your country, what is to say "a cannibal or man-eater," for Australia has a reputation to have still this sort of people, wiiich >are said to be dangerous." A "cannibal and a man-eater" has been posted to him, with the ends open. * * * Photographs of celebrities in English r>apers which bow the knee to "society," and exalt all society does, air© wonderfully quaint. For instance, there is, in a London "ha'penny,'' a picture of President Loubet, shooting something or other "in his grounds at Ramiboudllet." He apparently has his eyes shut, has the gun to his left shoulder, and is pulling the trigger with his right hand. Various horrified officials, in tight uniforms, are grouped about in kneetrembling attitudes. Again, in another current magazine, King Edward, "who is a magnificent hand with the ribbons," is seen "driving a pony chase at Sandringham." The King's most excellent majesty is sitting in the cart, and the pony is being most carefully led by a couple of immense flunkies. • • • Again, there is a picture we remember of Kaiser William out pig-huntmg. The pig has most obviously been dead for days, and the ferocious Bill is prodding it with a fixed bayonet. William is clothed in so tight a uniform that he couldn't stoop to take its tusks — do tame Berkshixes have tusks? — and half a battalion of dismounted Chasseurs are standing at a r espeotful distance salutiner William, or the dead pig ; or the bayonet, or something. There is half-a-column of gush over the sportsmanlike qualities of the man who prods dead pork.

Divorce is rapidly becoming a very popuiar institution with l\ew Zealandei£>. The other day a bpuightly little laay called on a leading lawyer withi the intimation tliat she wanted a divorce. The iawyer, surprised at her juvenile appearance, asked what grounds she had for the suit. "Well, it is this way," she said. "Me and Ted) were married in June, and he thanks he would rather be single, and I want to marry an officer on a steamer that I was engaged to before I knew Ted." These were her only groundis, and when the lawyer said she couldn't get a divorce, she flounced off without remembering to offer the fee for advice. * * # The alaaming frequency of divorce cases has been giving the judges food for reflection. The curious part of the business is that most of the bad matches seem to have been made before there •was any prospect of the law being made easy. People could not, however facile the law, rush into matrimony more recklessly than they have been wont in the past. As Judge Cooper remarked' the other day. "Young women engaged tfhemselves' to marry men witb. less investigation into their lives and characters than a lawyer or merchant would make if he were employing an office clerk." ♦ • * This ds worth re-printing, because it is mostly true. "Public Opinion" gets it off its miud : — "The bigger idiot a man is the greater genius he thinks hi» son ought to be. Your average parent is the best illustration of the moat and the beam parable. If a boy is not clever and smart, if he cannot pass examinations and take the world by storm, so to speak, his father invariably wants to know why. He always comes to one of two conclusions, that the teacher is a fool, or that hisi son isa lazy, good-for-nothing wretch, and he bullies them., accordingly. It never occurs to the hectoring bnute that the child is .not over-blest with brains ; it never strikes him that the doctrine of hereditary is asserting itself." A Wellington medico, who has just returned from Sydney, tells a rather smart story. Dr. So-and-so, of Sydney, was explaining to him that the Sydney Hospital was wonderfully complete — separate wards for this, and that, and everything under the sun. ""We have even a wards for the special treatment of motor itis!" (motorcar mania). "Indeed," said the WeHington man, "that is interesting. Mow many patients have you?" "At present, eight; but oome along, and I will show you round." Tine hospital was reached., and' the Wellington man was ushered into the motoritis ward. There was only one bed occupied, the patient being then in a sitting position^ and with glaring, bloodshot eyes, acting as though he was driving a motor-oar at eighty miles an hour. "You said you had eight patients," saidl the Wellingitonian. "Yes," said the Sydmeyite, "the other seven are under the beds repairing the works! '

There are many Irving Stories. The late genius of the stage was so good a "boss," so consistently courteous and generous, that people often presumed on his generosaity. There was a mediocre little person onoe in his company who had been taken to America o>n Irving's first trip. You see, although he was five feet three, he could "walk on" with the dignity of six feet four. He had a deep and abiding affection for himself, and his name was — we will say, Walker. * * • Sir Henry was going to America for the second time, and! Walker told all whom it might concern that he certainly wouldn't so to Yankee-land at his present salary. He was worth double. Irving's people knew Walker, and agreed with him — then they hid' behind a stack of "props" and laughed. Vary well, then, WaLker would beard the courteous but often cynical, actor who looked like a great prelate. He was received with the wiwndrog politeness that made English people love him and Americans adore him. Walker told Irving that he ha/d been in America once., and had greatly improved since. Irving >acquiesced, and offered him a cigar. Walker felt that Xiue fires that burnt within him w&re worth feeding with a double salary. He, in fact, wouldn't go to America without double salary. Irving acquiesced. "If I were you, Walker, I most assuredly wouldn't go. From youir point of view you are right. By the way, Walker, we are going on the 20th. When do you go, and with whom?" • • * Some actors are filled with pomposity. Once there was a gentleman — call him Macintosh — who was oast for a small part. He burst into the greenroom. 'This is not a Macintosh part! There is poor old Buskin (a good old, all-round man). Give it to ham!" Many subsequent parts were offered to Macintosh. They were not "Macintosh" parts. Such a part didn't seem to come along, so Macintosh thought. One day, Irving called for Mac. "Ah — h, Mr. Macintosh," he said to that pompous individual, "at last we have found a Macintosh part — and have given it to poor, old Buskin!" * * • Irving jolly-good-fellowed as often as possible. The man wath "the heart of steel and the brain of ice" possessed neither. He was one of the few really brilliant after-dinner orators in the profession — he loved 1 good company, good wines, and J. L. Toole. He wore himself to death at the theatre, and wore the rest out in the jollity he never looked. He spent two-thirds of has salary in charities, and kept an army of pensioners. He squandered money in i realism. All his "properties" were the best he could buy. » # » Sir Henry's life tragedy happened when he was young. He loved' a girl, and she married another man. He also manned another girl, but not for love. They agreed to part — she to live her life, and he to live 'has. Henry and Lawrence Irving, their sons, loved either parent equally well. The late Fred Archer, the great jockey, whose life was full of tragedy, gave to Miss Ellen Terry "Fussy," a fox-terrier dog. "Fussy" was the most privileged person at the Lyceum. He was a pampered kuri, and knew things. Usually he slept on five hundred pounds' worth of Irving's "Cardinal's" robes, and snapped at the "dresser" when that person wanted them. He knew more about acting than some people we have seen in melodrama. # » ♦ It is an extraordinary tihing that Irving should have died practically while he was enacting the death of Becket. Miss Hardinge-Maltby, of Wellington, informs us that on one occasion the Archbishop of Canterbury invited Irving to Canterbury Cathedra] to speak a portion of Becket's part on the very spot whereon Becket. was murdered. Irving did so, and' it was a memorable performance. • * • Sir Henry's eldest son, Henry Broadribb, was a barrister, amdl married Miss Dorothea Baird, the original Trilby, but it is as a writer that Henry shines. His "Life of Jeffreys," showing that gener-ously-hated Chief Justice in a new and binder light, is a work of great merit and absorbing interest, while a work on celebrated criminals, the material for which he gathered from the Parisian records, is almost a classic of its kind. The other son, Lawrence (named after Irving's bosom friend, Toole), is a linguist of genius, and' the translator of many great French, Italian, and German plays. * * * , This from the "New Zealand Times," of Mondlay : — "Earl Spencer, who is suffering from a small cot on the brain (says a London cable message), is proving." Why his lordship doesn't sell the cot to a furniture dealer, at a reduced price, or why he is proving, and •what he is proving, are questions for a psychologist.

Bey. W. J. E. Elliott, erstwhile of Wellington, but now of the wild West Coast, "cuts some ice" m Seddonland. For instance, at Black's Point the other day they held a "Rhubarb Sunday," whatever that may mean. Anyhow, the crowd of people who wanted to hear the Wesleyan anniversary messages from the parson was so great that the Local church wasn't big enough to hold it. Consequently, a huge tent was erected, and the people listened to the voice of the parson through the window ! Pity Parson Mliott got a "call," don't you think? • * * This is a true story. An Irishman of Wellington had beem killing a dog for some time. He was a kind Irishman, and he tried to lose the dog. He got the dog into canine "scraps," and rain ' away, hoping the poor, faithful hound would get kiiled. Hie didn't like to deliberately sit down and shoot the beast, or podson it, or hit it on the head with a club. No ! The dog oame back amd licked his hand, and) got a feed, every time. • • • The Irishman want to his "boss." "There's that poor, ou'ld divil of a dog, sorr, and begorra I've killed Ihim that manny times I'm sick of it. WhatU oi do wid him?" The "boss" told him to put the faithful, but diseased, beast into a sack with a couple of bricks, and heave the lot into the tide atTe Aro. He went away. Inateir, he cam© back — with the bag! "Well, Mick, and did you drown the dog?" "Oi did that, pore baste, and begorra whin, oi got home there he was sittin' on the duresthep!" Mick had emptied the bricks and the dog out of the bag ! "Shoire I wain ted the bag for spuds'" he said. And divil a wan of him knows this blissid minit how the ghost of that kucri got home ! He is satisfied the dog has been sent to haunt him, so he is. • • * Auckland was the scene of a great sensation last' week. Walking down a remote 'suburban road, a young doctor came upon what he took to be evidence of a foul crime. A man was lying, face down and quite still, otx the pavement. Whether he had been struck down by a ruffian from behind, or garrotted, or whether he was a poor soul who had. extinguished his own light, the doctor didn't wait to see. He wildly hailed a brother doctor who was passing in a motor car, and together they went across to examine the bodjy . Thinking that some spark of life might still be left in the victim, the young doctor put his hand on the shoulder of the prone person, and said: "Are you hurt?" The corpse turned round and fixed a wild eye on the medico. "Gram, yer fool! Can't yer see I'm only a turnin' on the watter?" With that he drew a muddy arm out of the hole in the ground, and 1 spat disgustedly.

"Where will you be taken, my poor boy?" asked a kind person, of a little Stratford chap, who had a leg accidentally broken. "Well, I usually goes to the Hospital when I has me leg broken," he said. "Usually?" queried the person. "Yes ; this is the fifth bime its gone bung on me!" he smiled. And it was even so.

Heaven forbid that the Lance should join the stinkiing-fish party, and run, the best country on the earth down. However, the letter of an, American settler in New Zealand to a Home paper, optimistdo and cheery as it is, remarks among other things : "The great drawback to farming in New Zealand! is the high wages one has to pay. A man round here gets from 6s to 7s for eight hours' work." The fact of the matter is that no farmer in New Zealand pays either 6s or 7s a day for ordinary farm work. True, at harvest time, when hands are scarce, he has to pay 6s, 7s, and up to 10s a day for help, but the every-day drudge shuffles along on 15s or £1 a week and "tucker." i

There is a dear old parson, who lives not far from Wellington, on whose revered legs the mark of tarn© has set its skinny talons. Ho had tottered to a seat in a public reserve, and was sitting enjoying the breezy balm and tlhe lovely flowers and the shimmering grass. When, however, he essayed to rise, he found himself unable, because his poor, old 1 legs weren't very good. There was a sturdy young boy engaged with a "shanghai" and! som© sparrows in a near-by tree', and the parson called him-. "Do you think, my dear lad," he asked, "you could help me to my feet? Are you strong enough?" Replied! the sweet youth : "My grandpa drinks like a fish, too, amd I often helps him!"