A COOL WIDOW

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1026, 21 January 1882, Page 4

A COOL WIDOW

“ JEgles ” is responsible for the following mendacious anecdote : —Near Menindie, on the Darling, one of the gentle sex is to be found who has had the misfortune to lose her better half, for the time being, on three different occasions. Travellers say she is by no means the most amiable of women, and this may account for the heavy rate of mortality among those unfortunates who venture to woo and win the widow, the roadside shanty, and the bit of other property. It is remarkable that each husband shuffled off the mortal coil in a different way —the first in the orthodox fashion, after a long illness; the next succumbed from the effects of exposure in the bush, where he had wandered after a drinkiug bout; and the third sent his ghost to that bourne from whence no traveller returns by suspending himself by a rope to the branch of a gum tree in the neighbourhood of the bush shanty. The deed was done in the darkness of the night, and the noise and confusion of a general carouse the landlord was not missed until the morning, when one of the more sober guests discovered him hanging where the beef or mutton needed for the table of the tavern at other times had hung. The lano-ady was duly informed of the matter and quietly had a sheet put around the remains of the departed (or suspended.) and left them swaying to aud fro until the arrival of the trooper who was sent for, and had io come some distance. In the meanwhile, two wayfarers arrived at the place aud had their stock of tea, sugar, and flour replenished by the hostess, who informed one of them, in answer to his enquiry whether she had any meat, that she was just out of that article. Noticing the enshrouded carcase hanging the visitor naturally mistook it lor sheep just slaughtered, and directed her ladyship’s attention to it. “Oh that, ” said she ; “ why, that’s my Charlie! Didn’t you hear that be had hung himself?” —as she weighed out another half stone of sugar.