THE CRITIC.

NZ Truth, Issue 67, 29 September 1906, Page 1

THE CRITIC.

Who can undaunted brave the Critic's vftge? Or note unmoved his mention m the Critic's page? Parade his error m the public eye ? And Mother Grundy 's rage defy ? Poverty is a poor example. * * • Victoria's Premier is still Bent on mischief. * • • Most of us expect better obituary notices than are coming to us. * * » More scandal is talked over the tea-pot than over the beer bottle. * * • Many a good resolution is wobbly because it hasn't/ sufficient backbone. 1■• • • Even nature seems to have n. "nark" on the W.C.T.U. lady v Look at her face ! .« « « There was a young fellow named Syd, Who kissed a girl on the eye lyd, Said she to the lad, "Your aim's mighty bad, l You should practice awhile," so he dyd*

Every good wife trusts her husband, ! Tn alt things— up "to a certain point. !' ■.■■■■■'*■'.':-•'* ■■ "■ ■•; ■ ! It is sometimes humane to kill a ..shattered hope, just to put it out of I its misery. ! • » * I The workman's wife who takes her [husband's clothes to a Chow laundry would take his honor there, too, • * * | Is there any. record of any man i having- to pay for .the keep of illegitimate twins m the colony ? If so, ! God help him. » ' »■ • Most men are of a trusting . disposition, but when it comes to trusting a friend with the charge of their girl they think twice. * '* ' * '/They've started a queer restaurant m the city ; no tables, no chairs, no food, no waiters." ; "What are they running it on, air or water ?" "No ; Christian Science— you think you eat— so much a think." 11 A man convicted of being a rogue and a vagabond might as well go and drown himself," said a Christcliurch six-and-eightpence t'other 1 day. "It brands him as a rogue, and his status of respectability is completely gone." '• ' - ».,..■■» * One result of the. Anti-G ambling Act: ' • '• Wanted, to buy (second-hand), ■belltopper hat, , frock coat, Bibic ■ aud umbrella. Daily paper adyt. The parson seems to be creating opposition. • * ♦ According to Professor Leroy Tobey, the great New York astronomer, Arcturus, the Sun's sun, is drawing the sun;- and therefore the Earth, nearer at the rate of ISO,OOO miles' an hour, and he, predicts that it will consequently be. &o warm,; on. .vCcPd's green footstool ''{hat inf A':D. 19,J)i§5, or 18,000 years hence, said footstool will, be again a molten mass. Thank having, we've sot time left for another beer or two.

1 Some pious person or persons have taken to advertising on fence rails for the benefit of the unsoaped sinner. Sometimes these advertisements get mixed up m the sordid business advertisements, thus :— • Business: Take -> — 's pale pink pills. Pious : To die is gain. Pious : What shall the harvest be ? Business : Conkey's rolled oats for children. ■ .» • ' ' • A" lot of criminals released at 'Frisco, owing to the 'quake, are finding their way into N.S.W. Said that no less than three ruffians who bad been sentenced to 14 years each arrived last mail. Police and public would do well to be on the alert. As Auckland is *the 'Frisco liners' first port of call this side of Pago Pago, it behoves our Immigration Department to keep a bright look-out for such undesirable immigrants, who mostly work their passage as firemen, stewards and pantrymen. • - . « * The City Council is -.as hopelessly incompetent m its management of the water supply for which householders are so heavily taxed as m all else under its jurisdiction. In any properly run community the intended cutting off of supply, during operations on pipes, m a neighborhood or district, is notified beforehand by a house to house call. Here m Wellington no such courtesy is dreamed of, with the result that the housewives of a whole street suddenly discover that there is no water for household purposes -and the man's morning tub becomejs an impossibility. Mayhap the Councillors and officials never get a morning tub and so fail to remember that such is a custom with the many, but at least they might consider the women and their* housework, and notify temporary stoppage.

As a specimen of the extraordinary inability of the N-Z, Rugby Union to manage • its affairs, two omissions m the conduct of the late North Island v. South Island iftatch may be mentioned. When the 30 players, hot and parched, rushed into the rooms at half-time m search of refreshments, there was not an orange or lemon provided, as is the universal custom under other management, and the remarks were unprintable. Then it is usual, seeing that the teams put up at hotels, where it is nafcurallv impossible for them all to get a bath, which is absolutely necessary after a match, for those m charge of affairs to arrange for baths for the lot, down town, and also to provide for at least one drink apiece for the exhausted players. The N.Z.R.U. did nothing like that and it was left for one working mqmber, with the true sporting spirit of hospitality, to come to the rescue with a "shout" at a mrb. and to take the whole lot down to baths m the city, and no/r for 'em, too. Now need it lie remarked that- new blood is vettuired on the. N.Z.IUJ. committee %

Numerous nondescripts seem to take ion the .vagrancy business as) a recre|ation. i .' ' " .■'■■•'■• * 1 Busybody mugwumps are always | giving counsel to those who don't i ask for it. | • • .»■••' ! The Czar of Russia is going to have the old saying "Threatened men live long" set to music. But it is like to be a dead march. ; ■ .. * • « « ! A Christohurch parson advertises that he is prepared to teach elocution. He is taking the biz oh as a side line to pulpit pratings. From writer's knowledge of innumerable, droning parsons they could do with a : few lessons m elocution themselves. ! ' ' *:'. *-:' . * ,\/ } Oh shun the soldered tin , ' ' ■ That from Chicago hails, For lurking there within ■ Are microbes ; with long tails. ; To tempters do not: yield ;C *''.'■'','■■ Buy not what they would sell*' Lest when the tin is sealed . Your fate be sealed as well, « ' •■..■, * ; It came out at the , Burnham enquiry that members of the Board of Advice, who lived m the city, and who probably patronised ChinkievS, always had a lot of; vegetables showered on them by the manager. ..Well, that's about the only "sweetener" they got,, and "garden truck" is always .acceptable. • * ♦ ■ From July, 1905, to June, 1906, New South Wales had 25,246 births m excess of deaths, and an added ])opulation of .10,734 i'mmigranta. Most of the new arrivals were from other States and New Zealand. There were no bum navvies . and consumptive clerks from starved out -Hingland; brought out under wicked false pretences. '„..'

The world-famed' - . ' ' Gibson Girl , ' ' .originated- by .Charles -Dana Gibson,' the talented American artist, has her counterpart m Ciiristchureh. The special duty of Constable Gibson is to keep the streets clear of women of exceptionally easy virtue, arid once or twice a week the "Gibson G-irl" appears before the court, a study m melancholia. An enquiry is badly required into the management of the Christchuxch Hospital, which is bossed by a Board of incapables, but the Government don't seem inclined to grant one. Fowlds say_s that Dr. McGregor's report merely pointed out defects that ! existed durine: the past year. Which is good. The Hospital people say that McGregor hasn't 'been near the place, « * • The most loathsome sight m Wellington is that of the smiling little daughters of the poor running m and out of the Chow fruiterers and being horribly leered at 'by, the yellow fiends as they entice them to Hell's gates with presents of rotten fruit. Why don't the parson • and the antigam.blin's: yahoos get on to' this na-tion-destroyin<j< horror and leave decent white "folk alone. • ' ■ •. « A Christchurch woman who had lost the consolations of a husband owing to his having crossed the Styx, started to console herself with beer, and she proved a fair goer, spending a tenner m a fortnight all on her little own. Then a policeman stepped m and clouded her ' drinky life by getting a prohib. order filed against her. An expenditure of £5 a week on purge would mean £250 a year—if she lived to see the year out, which is doubtful, very. « • • A correspondent of a country paper says : "The voice of the lamb-buyer is heard m the land, and the shearer is making a "stir." That sounds so poetical that "Critic" is forced to chortle :— The voice of the lamb-buyer is heard m the land, ' And the shearer is making a stir ; While the mint sauce will also be taking a hand When the shearer bloke takes off the fur. • % m Wellington is a dreadfully, cruel place for a working woman to be alone m. These poor creatures, widows and the like, find it almost impossible to obtain rooms, landladies, without exception, preferring male lodgers ; and unless it is m the "bad" quarters, a woman who toils m, say, a laundry, all day, cannot find permanent lodging by night, while, even there, the "crook lydies" are jealous of a woman who keeps herself respectable, and bring pressure tpbear on the landlady to induce hc> co turn her out. She's a sort of reproach to them, that's what's the matter, If a woman of this class is out of a job and has a room, life is still a misery, for she has to turn out and walk the streets all day, as people object, to having mere roomers about m the daytime. God help' the lonely woman who j wants to keep square— it is made very ' difficult for, her m Wellington.

... The ■ kittenish '•.girl alyja.j's sdems to be looking for trouble, "but f< when it" comes . her way she archly declines with an assumed air of injured innocence. , * • • w ■ ' Apparently a water cart is an unknown blessing m Nelson. A recent visitor says he nearly 'got choked with, the dust there last Saturday^, night. No wonder prohibition does' 1 not advance m such a dusty, town. ■ • • • Nelson boasts a fine, big, new Post Office now, so it may "be expected that Sirjoe will have a run across m a week or two and declare it open and at the same time give a bit of kid to the Nelsoriians., English, money,' 'spent m Germany to purchase goods England would make herself if her industries were protected by. customs duties, is building; a German Navy that ere long will perhaps 'more than threaten England's supremacy of the seas. Oh, fools and/blind ! \ .■" ' ' ' ■.'.»■■■♦. • The U ShanH Sleep Co. does what it likes with the Nelson people. Some days there are two and three boats leaving for Wellington aM other days none at all. When will the residents of "Sleepy Hollow" wake up "arid demand a daily service, or start a co-operative one and give it all the trade ? * ' * • . Under Edward VI. not only were be^gars flogged ' and branded, but the giver was fined ten times the amount of his. alms. Under Edward VII. the lu.sc-biter lives without work and the lurried grow old prematurely. If old Sixer was on deck now ifc would cost him a fortune, m branding irons and, whips, while the fines would pay off the national debt.

; Tima.ru has. also its s Chow now has one -named. Sun Ah Foo running a. laundry to "-'shove out the whites sis'- | ters of the white workers — who will j no doubt patronise the yellow thing, j This is the more reasonably to be ex- j pecteil since Timaru brewers are to i be seen drinking brotherhood with a j stinking Chow. Shame on ye, white I New Zealand, that such a* thing ix ! possible ! • • » Wellington simply swarms with rats. Now rats mean plague, bubon- j ie, jmeuiiionic. Plague means death to many, which is hard, but it means business stagnation and loss of prestige as a good city to come to; which is worse from a national point of view. So if our oivic fathers | are . not dead to all sense of duty ' let them offer a scalp fee and set | the unemployed and the strenuous Wellington kid rat hunting. What j would the harvest be ? Why, you can kick the rats as you walk, on some streets, o' nights. • * ■ •• If one of the "big guns" of the U.S.S. Co. was to travel incog, to Nelson and have a look at the manners of some o£ the "collar and cuffs" cads m the Port office when answering questions to passengers there would be a billet or two vacant m a' very short time. A gentleman who had business m Nelson last. weeK and hied thither m the s.s. Penguin was treated with every courtesy on the ship ; but when going into the Portoffice to make some enquiries re a return boat he found it a very difficult matter to get a civil answer, let alone obtain any information. < It seems that N.Z. banks don't care to hand over gold m large ara^ ounts to persons who present cheques ; they want to circulate their dirty, greasy notes. Alleged that a Christohurch bank lately declined to hand over 100 soys, telling the presenter that if he wanted gold he'd have to go to Wellington for it. This is a piece of colossal impudence which should not be tolerated. People are entitled to gold if they desire it, and it must be a pretty sick bank that can't fork out 100 soys on demand. A 'question should be asked m Parliament about the matter. In Sydney all payments are made m gold unless notes are specially asked for. • * * Where do the dour, dirty-minded, dismal dogs, who try to run this and other free countries according to their own miserable minds, get their authority for the deadly dull Sabbath ? God's commandment is simply an ordinance against working, and ordaining rest. There is nothing m the whole Rible to say that we cannot enjoy innocent, healthful recreation on the seventh day ; and it is up to the People to arise and shake off the galling yoke of parsonic tyranny and demand their freedom from persecution m the interests of the plate.. The laws of man that enable people to be persecuted for "breaking the Sabbath" were mostly passed as a sop to the dingy puritanic conscience during the reign of that prince of libertines and debauchees, Kinrc Charles 11. Lovely that we should be saddled with them to-day. !