THE CRITIC.

NZ Truth, Issue 64, 8 September 1906, Page 1

THE CRITIC.

a . vWho-can undaunted brave the Critic's rage? Ornote unmoved Ms mention m tbffOritio's pagf? '.Parade his error m the public eye 1 And Mother Grundy*s ragedefy ?

Ptomainey cooks spoil the broth.. * * ' * . • . One swallow does-not-make a- night .out.

Williamson's chorus girls are prpv?* ing by their abnormal marriage rate that beauty is only skin tights. \

The latest Babu "howler"- is an ! answer given by a would-be B.A. to* the auestion "What is a-porcupine ?" ; The Babu wrote, "It is- ay pig with/ '■•thorny feathers.'*

Up m the Richmond River.(N..&.W;>s district recently, two women plough--* ed a quarter of an acre-of land, against each other for the wager of a new hat. From turning the bread- to turning the sod !

Father (at midnight):. '"It's getting late. Why doesn't that" young fellow who calls to see Mary go home?" The "dear little brother" was still awake, and he replied, "He can't, Dad a Mary's sitting on him !"

"Do you like going to church;?" asked a visitor of a Methodist minister's son. "My oath !" said the lad. "It's a real boshter to near Dad talking for a solid hour and a half, and Ma never allowed to say a word !"

"Africa for the Ethiopians." That is the latest creed. As Lowell wrote: It's wal enough agin a king To dror resolves ami triggers, But libbatty's a kind o' thing Thet don't agree with niggers."

One of the foremen engaged m- the Kilbirnie tunnel evidently thinks that he owns the men whom the Council put m his charge body and soul. He asked one of the miners the other day to go to his house and empty the night-soil ! The man didn't go, and he didn't get sacked for refusing, either.

S queezin g point ;— Two • in r the- shade

• •■»-4?Wlierg* r sKow,;,w.bilM vi ,l)& "bettef ' ap- • predated at there were 1 ' ; f ewer ■ Jgaickerfbockered brats-arburidtlie-Varibts en- '* ' ■ , '^ \r-

The death is announced m Otago of -Tare Weteri, fast of the chiefs who signed his native land away to the pafieha, aged 104 years, *■• ' *

' Amazing the things people blow m to "Truth" with and want "put m de pyper." If we put some of 'em m we'd do life, sure pop ! / .;•

•Beware, you bun-scufflers ! Down at Kaitanga the other day Thos. Stephens ate one. ■- T. he jury's verdict was suffocation caused by eating a bun.

Dr. £ £ Smith, of Melbourne, is going to hang some old paintings at the Christchurch Exhibition. "How I make old men young, at a quid a time," isn't the title of any of them. • ■■ ■ • •

The expenses of the Royal Commission on the famous voucher alle-p-ations made by Mr Fisher, M.H.R., were, according to the Estimates, ; £442. This, too. to gratify personal spite. How would Fisher like to refund that four hundred quid.

Somebody writes a wild .howl m tame lead pencil to say that some*bbdy else "give a bardy" up Pirie•street way, and kept him awake. Gordelpus ! Can't anybody enjoy themselves m this dreary village without somebody else kicking.

From the moral "Post"— that hounds gloomy fanatics on to: the '•'indecent" post-card vendors the while it prints them for profit-

VACANCIES for married couple and two gentlemen (to share room). 36, Wellington-terrace.

A pretty state of things we must be coming to m Wellington, truly !

Twelve Japanese rickshaw men have left Yokohama for Christchurch. O Mimosa San ! It is to-be hoped they are bringing their pittv patty, clickity clackity ladies with them. Once set up m their little tea-houses no power on earth will shift them, as Queensland and . Westralia can bear testimony, and are glad thereof.

The Chief Justice came dawn hard and heavy .on a fire fiend named Leonard Ashwin' who. at Wanganui, was convicted of manslaughter. Ash-w-in's dastardly crime consisted m setting fire to his own boardinghouse, by which a man named Albert' Dumble was burned to death. Ten years hard was the sentence and Ashwin richly deserved it.

The loyal lunatic is much m evidence m Wellington, witness that whoopful crawl on the rear elevation of the 1 building known as Barrett's Hotel, on Lambton, Quay, which reads : "June 18, 1901. A day to be remembered m Honor of; the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York." Gods ! ain't it sickenm? What the devil good did the> visit do this country, that we should be pestered to remember it ?

There's a lydy- living -in -.naughty* North-street (which is a leary laneoff Upper Tory-street) who badly needs the scrubbing-brush over 'her tongue and who, if she don't .disoipline that. member, will find herself curtesying to the S.M. one of these -hail lovely spring mornings. She's a beaut on the character suit, herself, .and can ill afford to vilify better people. Now Mrs — — just show the community that you can take a, .hint, or else get • ready for a big \ bump.

In. answer to "Plain Bill" -it- maybe stated that the Governor's, name is officially printed "The Right Honorable William Lee, Baron Plunket, K.C.M.G., X.C.V.0." This probably means that .he was born plain Bill Lee, and had the Plunket patched on when he was plunked into a berth as a T>aron. For my part I don't care a titiker's curse what the bounder's name is, but I know his painful mug m that picture of the new Ministry gives me a sharp pain. Surely. Bill, you did not expect a correct answer from the- "Post." 1

There's 'a bad-breathed,, beer-biting, skiting, iblasphemous, unwashed hoodlum of a Salvationist humbug at Napier who, every Sunday night, blithers and bellows about' "Truth" and all connected with it. He buys it regularly, however, and no doubt has at some period of his mangy, dirty, disreputable, immoral, hypocritical, useless life been under its stinging lash for some shameful crookedness, and he seizes the opportunity to try and get back at it. As a fact the blatant, illiterate, ignorant animal only advertises this paper by his tirade of lies and abuse about it, and it is worth consideration whether it would not be a good business move to put the blusterou" bully on the free list.

These "sound language" advocates not consistent. The new style js called phonetic* -, I! we .go ■bf.'.s^^ at should be. idnetick^ , : ■ '''. , ! ■■■' *"•'■' ' •'■ «

"Hope springs eternal m. the human breast" up at Kawakawa, where, according to a local paper, it, after so many years of lethargy, is no doubt to be destined the centre. oi many industries. Very modest !

Okahune is evidently down on. its uppers, as per the correspondent of the "Taihape, . News" :— "Another butcher has opened, a shop here, but we are sadly m .want of a good bootmaker, who would do a thriving business m the township."

The Argentine . Government recognising that a permanent settler becomes a permanent and a valuable asset to the State, allows all new comers five year's remission of taxation besides free railway carriage for all requirements m making a start.

The "Kumara Times" briefly mentioned the other day the fact that Mr Stanley Thorn and Miss Barrett enter unon their matrimonial career tomorrow afternoon. Whatever Stanleymay think of it, "^Critic" trusts Miss Barrett will not prove , a thorn m the flesh. •

t Dour Dunedin again. From"' a local paper :

YOUNG- MAN wishes CORRESPOND with young .lady. small and dark, also pleasant.— Waiting, Outram P.O.

Now girls, don't all speak at once Don't let him wait long though !, • • »

A Minorca hen belonging to Mr Jeffreys, a railway employee at Milton, thinks nothing of laying pretty regular W a double yolked egg. She varies this at intervals by going one better and lays a treble yolked one. These latter are large and nearly the size of a goose egg. What a useiul bird to be sure, at election time.,

From the "Otago Daily Times^a WIDOW (without encumbrance) wishes to MEET Gentleman, educated ; view to matrimony ; particularly so as to assist m extending new business ; money not 'necessary.—Genuine, P. 0., South Dunedin.

Love, not lucre, is what is wanted here. The extendine business is sure to follow. And won't "Genuine" be crushed with applicants f,

Down at' " Dunedin the o^her day a one-time wealthy individual was convicted of the theft of ah overcoat. Sentence was suspended, one condittion being that he took out a prohibition order agalinst himself. This same individual had undergone the "gold cure" for drunkenness, some years ago. Yet foolish women hope to reform drunken husbands by such cures, little dreaming; that they are only increasing the constitutional ravages -made by drink.

' A* New Zealand , prostitute may. well abandon hope of reform. If she is chivvied from, say Christchurch, and takes a situation m Wellington, her description reaches the local police and, to their unutterable -shame, these hound her out of her job by betraying her past to 'her employer. What resource then, is left the poor_ creature but the streets, and it is never long before some "zealous and astute officer," after perhaps enjoying her favors himself <on a c< love" basis, runs, her m as a prostitute. It's truly noble work that "Critic'"' would sooner starve to death than undertake.

That bright print, the. Kawakawa--"Luminary," makes no bones about the useful purpose it doesn't serve as a disseminator of news m the Bay of Islands district. The editor is evidently a person with the brain of an oyster, or surely he would not thus advertise his crass ignorance of the requirements of his readers :

—■PARLIAMENT opened on Tuesday. We were asked if the"Luminary" would take the Governor's speech by telegraph and courtesy of the Government, and replied— "No thank you."- --• '• #

As Social Purity. Crusader Bligh is. doing the country and lecturing on the reproduction of the species, and drawing deductions and morals from plants, etc., for. the edification of the bad boy, he might change his tack when he reads what a resident m South Africa writes to the "Western Pacific Herald" : "I saw an article m the "Western Pacific Herald" marvelling at the fact of a male mummy apple bearing fruit on the Rewa. This is quite common here, and I have a pawpaw male ''tree m my garden bearing prolifically all the year round, and quite putting his lady species m the shade, as he is 22 feet high and 8 feet m circumference one foot from the base, and is the largest pawpaw m Africa." Pretty Joey I

Humane Hume's Prison Report at-ttibu^s-.i/he-increase m Auckland criminal' record l£s,t year to the fact that- the northern city is the first p'or,t of call for boats from San Francisco, N.S.W. and the Islands. Of course, God's Own snufflebusters never sin— well, hardly ever !

According to the prospectus of "The Throne," a new London sassiety rag, it 'has 23 editors and coeditors, ; mostly ladies, and a director. The "editorial sanctum" . must be a nice quiet place. Somebody ought to start an opposition rag and call it, "The. Person," and then have the Throne prosecuted for exposing it.

Bigotry even m the face of cruel Death! Recent announcement m a Melbourne morning daily : "On the Ist August, at the residence of her parents, the beloved daughter of an( i -, aged 8 months. In^terred 2nd August, 1906. 'Our Protestant bud m heaven.' " What sort of a bud is a Protestant one, anyhow 1

Can any one give a single goad reason why the country is put to the enormous expense of publishing "The New Zealand Defence Forces Army List" every three months ? It appears, to be merely a list of bounders and Boer-baiters, and of no earthly use to any sane citizen, still less worthy of expending the overburdened taxpayers' money on.

In our correspondence columns a local resident corrects the impression that the pennant who died the other day left three millions sterlings and never a red cent to charity, was the beer man. He says it was Tennant, the chemical cuss o' G-las^ie. Pleased to ' know it, thought the other statement was a libel on any brewer; and it's much more believable about a Glasgie'mon ye ken. H00t,., mon i he'll fin' a braw mairket for sulphur whaur he's ganged till !

The average "cop" is an amusing cuss. > At the court the other day one bright specimen was giving evidence m, a Sunday liquor selling case, "You say that you saw two men m the bar?" said the cross-examining counsel. "Well, how were they standing?" ' "They were both standing facing the one way," was the reply. "Facing the one way, were they ■■?" "Yes," pursued the bobby, "facing one another." /And. for the life of him, he. couldn't see anything to laugh at.

The method by which' some Wellington policemen secure convictions against , women of the 1 towa for "soliciting prostitution" is ingenious if despicable. One plain-clothes man will tip a girl the office that his mate, who is "just down from the country," wants to meet an obliging lady and advises her to "ask for the money m advance, as he's a slippery cove." When she does so, m his hearing, they disclose the fact that they are policemen and of course can then truthfully swear that she "solicited" the second conspirator.;

'An advertisement appears m the Christchurch "Truth" asking applications for the position of nurse at the Masterton Hospital. The advt. is signed H. C. Simington. Isn't this a libel on Secretary J. C. Boddington? But poor old B odd. writes such an awful fist that no printer could be blamed for making Simington, or Lamington, or Cholmondeley or Smith, or anything else out of his signature. We hope this par. will oatch the eye of some enterprising" typewriter agent m Masterton.

!A: pathetic suicide is reported from-,. Pungarehu, Taranaki, the victim being Mary Hilda Humphries, aged 21, the wife of "the local school-teacher. The young woman had only recentlybeen confined of a child and during her husband's absence at school she drowned herself and infant m a creek. She had been desponding over her maternal troubles of late, and the Coroner's jury verdict was she drowned herself while temporarily insane. An open verdict was returned on the death of the infant. The kindness of that jury m returning such a verdict does them infinite credit.

In March last, m giving evidence against an unfortunate girl named Phoebe Blaney, Constable Williams said she was suffering from venereal disease. The poor creature got six months on a charge of "soliciting." She is now at liberty, and as "Truth" reported the constable's evidence she has waited upon us and perfectly satisfied us that the statement Was gratuitously false. What the young woman was suffering from at the time was the effects of an operation for the removal of a tumour on the abdomen, and it was nothing; short of scandalous for an ignorant policeman to brand his victim as being venereally infected, just because he understood she was m illhealth.