THE CRITIC.

NZ Truth, Issue 130, 14 December 1907, Page 1

THE CRITIC.

» — Who can undaunted brave tbo Critic's rage ? Or note unmoved his mention m tli c Critic 's pa ge? Parade his error m the public eye ? And Mother Grundy's rage def.v? ■ Half a loaf is better than working all the time. • . Some husbands don't know when they're not wanted. A. lot of water is wasted through' i ,t>3ing mixed with whisky.' • ' * - « One rarely hears m the divorce i ■"our-t an allegation of cruelty to the j fc.isb&nd. | I ■■•.*■ ' V ' Marriace may possibly be made. in heaven, but it is really what man and woman make it. j ! "Clitic's" sassiety reporter states that handsome complexions are not fashionable on rainy days. • ■ -. • • Trout snarers who tell their yarns ! to newspaper men should be compelle:l by the latter to make an affidavit a"4 to the size of their catches before a Magistrate. • • • Soys an exchange : "Under the new tariff Sunday School attendance books have to pay 25 per Cent duty." Books 0f.. a1l kinds are having a rough) passage of late. •• * • •A witness m. an Auckland' Supreme Court- case observed the other day : "I don't like to use any language to foreigners, even Maoris, that they object to." Lo !, the poor Maori. He's a foreigner 'now. That's the unkiridest cut of all. « * * Spooners, or love birds, or whatever giddy young couples are called arc no class with a Manakau Anglican Church official. . At a recent service there it was found necessary to r-rebuke a young . and apparently thoughtless girl whose behavior- was j not m keeping with her surroundings. TVtn.shing m church is strictly prohibited. Anyhow, if church people go 100 far. there'll be.no marriages or fhristenings, nml then the birth rate will ricHine. Parsons don't; look at . that atf&wrt of the question, i

Monotony—one wife, ! * * » Cupid employs 'a lot of chaperone m his match factory. . * ■ ■ : The latest comparison — As happy as kleptomaniac on bargain • day. ••- The proper thing nowadays seems to be to have, an "affinity"— with your wife as a chaser. * * ■ • The cleverest politician is usually the one who keeps his mouth shi^t the longest— he who not only knows that he doesn't know any thine 1 , but kno^vs enough to keep others from knowing it. . ' ■ ■'. The most ingenious " exhibit just, now m London is the egg "m the slot hen-roost. A • hen takes a private apartment, and' cannot get out again until she has dropped an egg into the slot. - ♦ * * "The Smiths are goinp: to move out of this . neighborhood, after being here nearly a. year." "That's strange, just as people are getting to know them." "That's the reason they're going." ♦ * * Waimate District High School committee has actually granted the Sal(Varmy permission to teach scholars attending the school Scripture. What are we coming to ? And I where 'is the Chinese missionary hiding himself ? Why doesn't he have a cut m too ? ♦ * • Some very questionable post-cards have been passing through the Christchurch Post Office lately and the wonder is that they are. delivered, m view of their dire offensiveness. The pictures are all right, but the writi .t">n messages on the reverse side are nothing short of disgraceful. * • • j Talk about "frenzied finance" ! I jfThcre isa joker m C-hristchurob who knows how to. finance -all -right, but still he's not clever enough to keep out of debt. The gentleman owns a I house and land worth £450, and not long ago he mortgaged the show for £650. Wonder who he took down. He is a house painter and his creditors are pressing him, aye, even into he debtor's court. * * * The refining influence of Christianity m Fiji may be gauged from the following list of cases set down for trial at Suva :— Raghunath Singh, rape ; Ramdin, rape • Harehandj attempted murder ; Kewal, suicide j Bhagwana, wounding ; Ramrattan, horse stealing : Sewdial and Parsotam, arson. ; Gori Sanka and seven others, arson." Three cheers for missionaries and rum. There is one parson m New Zealand, at anyrate, who has sense. This is the Rev. J. de B. G-alway, who has no love for the Chow m New Zealand and repeats what this paper is ever harping on, viz., that the alien m this land is of the coolie and criminal class from the Canton slums. In face of this, though, "dear and dirty John" is m evidence as much as ever. .* * • The village gossi" once again. An Akaroa woman named Jane Housrhton has been compelled to advertise that what she said . about William Day, painter, wasn't the square | cheese. The lady had spread a report 'that p&j. had a wife aiid children m j.the North Island. There is no crime iin having a wife and children m the I North Island, or any other island, [but Day didn't like it, and said so I with much vehemence. Whereupon jJano said- that the yarn was false, i and she withdrew it from circulation. • . • •• The following par from the "Limerick Chronicle is forwarded by a' j correspondent :— Evidence of the mildjness of the season continues to reach us from all quarters. A Tooting resident has been killed by the fa-11 of an apple weighing 82£ Ib, and a Clerkenwell man ha& badly strained his back whale endeavoring to lift a potato weighing over 2cwt. The following comment is added : "An apple weighing 82- a lb and a potato of over 2cwt I think are of a fair average." Our correspondent must be Scotch. « • • How the devil-dodder loves a puff m the paper. A parson will do mostly anything to get his name m print. He glories m it. And the paper proprietors should feel ashamed of themselves m- givin^ the wowser space. He is a sample of the sickly stuff from the "Bruce Herald" :— 1 'There was a good muster of . girls at the Presbyterian Church grounds on Wednesday afternoon, when the Rev. Mi Jamieson gave an interest- | ing explanation and exposition of the i same of basket ball.— The Rev. W. H. Howes returned from his holiday ( last week, and delivered a special i address to the young men at the Milburn Church last Sunday evening. 1 There was a good congregation - and j the choir sang the anthp'm, 'Grod! ; bless our pastor.' " The parson is I a coot all right. T.f "Truth" lomhastre? him lie says the paper has no ■ respect Tor God. t-'U^ftt-t^otti fcoun- ;

- A lovei: who throws his sweetheart ■a kiss i.s a lazy loafer. It would be more, polite to give it to her. at . » , m : .Does the Government "whip" get home on the "spur" of the moment? Sometimes' he takes his "reign" sad-dle-y. • ■•■ . • •, * * First Disputant : Then I'm a liar? Second Ditto : On the contrary, my dear fellow—you have just spoken the truth. - : •■■ ■ ♦ • It is unjust to accuse a man of weakness .because he is m love. He may have no intention of marrying the girl. • ' ' * . ■ •' "Beware, my son, of loose methods. ,Do you know how they generally end ? " ' 'No , sir . how ? " "In tight places." • * • We are least likely to turn our backs on either friends or foes when we have a patch on the rear. of our pants. ' • * * No beak should fine a man for getting; drunk who receives a telegram tellifrg him that his wife has just had triplets. • * • It is stated that there are 60,000 persons m New Zealand to-day "learning music." What a country this will soon be for noise. I • » • I "Providence," murmured the lang- ' uishing .damsel, "has been very cruel m the dispensation of things. The only things worth having are barr- i cd." • • * "The New Theology" obviously pays. "R. J.C.," i.e., the Rev. J. | Campbell, of the Cit- Temple, Lon- 1 don, has stood himself a 30=-h.p. Bee-ston-Humber motor car. I wish I had white hair and the gift of the gab. • » * A Yankee millionaire has been imprisoned for five days and espclled from Germany because he paid two laborers to publicly eat dirt m the streets. He was properly punished. But, after all; he only did What all his tribe seek to do— make the poor eat dirt. • • • An old and sin-worn joker, when being ■dealt with as a vag. by the S.M. tins week, replied, m answer to the question concerning his occupation, that he was "anything." That's just what he looked like, too. A wash would have made all the difference. ' I | Japan is a country for old maids to go to. There when a woman has reached the age of 42 and is 'unmarried, the authorities pick out a husband for her, and compel the couple to marry. This will not reduce the number, of old maids, but forces many men to commit suicide. • ■ , * • • The King of Siam's European tour is one of the most elaborate and expensive ever undertaken by an Eastern potentate. Falling an easy victim to ; the photographic craze, he ordered a dozen cameras of the latest pattern and "pressed the button" so assidiously that a giant pack of negatives soon accumulated. The wowsers of England arc becoming' distinctly disloyal. A newspaper published a statement that while at Marienbad, King Ned attended Mass, and bowed profoundly at the Elevation of the Sacred Host. His private secretary denied the yarn. But still the wowsers declared that Edward, "Fidei Defensor," had gone over to Rome «. * m * They do things better m America j than m New Zealand. A small boy m a Yankee town recently went out for a lark. His parents reported him ] missing and the police collared the . kiddy, who had stowed away m his j clothes a revolver, cartridges, empty I shells, dynamite plugs detonators, ; and two yards of fuse. The pocket j edition of Guy Fawkes was handed j over to pa and ma to be soundly j walloped. ; * * • I A London society weekly, m allud- ' ing to the number of millionaires who went shooting tigers, elephants, and other wild animals m the interior of Africa and Asia, alluded to their gameness. The paper' omitted to state that the hoodie crowd re-' posed safely on the backs of tame elephants anft crawled up trees to shoot the denisons of the jungle, leaving all the danger to the native beaters, who had to stay on foot. * • • At Dunedin a man named Harrison j recovered £1000 damages against i" Pittar and; Moses, dentists. While i. extracting teeth, Moses dropped one down Harrison's throat, i Now, this is something pittar-full That I'm at present readin'— We'd never know when Harrison's I Done drinkin' or Dim-edin ! ! Oh, Moses ! What a spectacleIt's quite extra-ordin-airy— A tooth you might expect ter kill, Dropped down your Little Mary. j A man must feel extremely odd — j Peculiar too — vw, welly — As though he v/<;:tt m Tusk-any — I Mit a molar m Siis — -watsianaiin, I