A CHEEKY BANKRUPT.

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 485, 17 December 1879, Page 2

A CHEEKY BANKRUPT.

While C. M. Monkton was airing himself at Waverley, we had the pleasure of doing a little advertising for him, which, of course, was never paid. Monkton has filed, and no doubt thinking this a splendid opportunity to twit some of the unfortunates he has lot in, the proprietor has received the following remarkable epistle;— “ Wellington, December 11th, 1879. “ Mr Black, “ You will see by the enclosed [extract of private meeting of creditors], I have had to call a meeting of creditors. The principal creditor takes over the estate, and guarantees 10s in the £. If you send your account to me, I will see it settled, I Told you at the time it was an extortionate price to charge for two insertions, so you would have done better to have taken less _Yours, &c., C. H. Monkton.” Mr Monkton has no doubt become very courageous behind the Debtors and Creditors Act ; but we might inform him that he had not the manliness to tell us that our advertising scale was extortionate. If he had—well never mind. This is the sort of gentleman one takes a fancy to. He gets all he can, and then insults you by saving you ought to have been satisfied with half (or even less) pay. We only wish the remainder of the creditors would consent to hand Mr Monkton over to us, the devil would grind 12s (by the by, this is all the account amounts to) out of him.

THE WOPSE’S NEST

Don’t be afraid, I am only an innocent Wops, buzzing round for fun, and to keep things lively. Was it not an American poet who wrote that lovely thing commencing, “Willie had a purple monkey climbing up a yellow stick?” Well, rifle shooting was our “ purple monkey,” and we have “ sucked the paint off ” nicely. I fancy it is the disappointment about the Sniders being sent here and then not issued, which makes drill-room and target deserted. I hear that the Patea cricketers are going to select 22 of their number to play 11 of the Cadet Corps ; ami if they win, they will then challenge any five men of any club on the Coast.

The Hawera boys are a fine lot of fellows, and one can’t help liking them, but they make one great mistake—they always fancy that a cricket or football ground is a practice place for the Debating Society, and they use Sampson’s weapon too much. So the railway is to be started here at last, not of course that I would hint it should have been started before, or that a district with millions of acres of the finest country in New Zealand deserves as much attention or outlay as a swampy forest like Inglewood ; but we thank you, Johnny Maori, for the “strategical” push. I was remarking to a cynical young friend the other day, that a lady from this district had married a member of the Upper House. “ Poor girl,” saidCynicus, “ what a come-down for her, and how her family must feci it.” On speaking to a friend concerning the operetta of “Trial by Jury,” he remarked that he thought it slightly improper. As I know the Harmonic Society could not possibly sing anything naughty, I put it down to the ultra-refinement of the critic, and mention the conversation only because it is the best drawing advertisement the Society could have. Washing day to most poor men is a trying time, but there are really some firstrate grumblers going. I told one the other night that I thought his garden was getting on wefl, and the vegetables were very fine. “ Vegetables,” be said ; “ bow can vegetables grow when the missis has always got her washing a’flappiu and a’throwin soapsuds over the pore things.” I hear from an up-country township that a Registrai who was hard up, went to a sick man to get an advance oft his deathcertificate. How is that for high ? The report of an accident in a Wellington paper slates that the unfortunate sufferer still “ lies unconscious.” He evidently is not one of our politicians ; they can’t plead unconsciousness. “ WOPS.”