Untitled

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1221, 9 December 1882, Page 2

On all hands (says the Wellington “ Post ”) there are complaints both loud and deep as to the treatment which Volunteers visiting Dunedin during the recent meeting received. The Wellington and Wairarapa representatives were anything but pleased with the visit, and judging from the following extract from the Wanganui “Herald,” the West Coast Volunteers have also been grievously disappointed with the trip :—“Our Volunteer representatives have returned with a poor opinion of Dunedin, and declare that it shall never see their faces any more. The weather was cold and wet, and hardly anything more miserable than their description of it could be imagined. Disorder everywhere prevailed. A match was to be fired at a certain hour, and by the time the men had assembled it had been found necessary to postpone it several hours. Again and again was this the case. But more annoying still was the way in which a match was fired. Hardly was it begun before the men were called to luncheon, and perhaps those who were firing at the interruption were not again called upon to fire for some hours. The weather had altered, the wind veered, and no sighting-shots were allowed to those who had partly fired. Under these unsatisfactory circumstances the men had to fire, and their patience was far from being on a par with the disregard for arrangement which was experienced. One Wanganui man, thus interrupted in a match, threw aside his arms and took the train for Christchurch Races, where he arrived with a lighter heart than had fallen to his lot for a week, and he could not restrain a feeling of commiseration for his fellow-men who were more prone to obey the call of duty at the sacrifice of their pleasure and comfort, on a bleak and sloppy Dunedin rifle range. They will never go to Dunedin again to shoot; no, never.”

A great deal of interest and amusement was caused in town yesterday afternoon by a number of the representatives of women’s rights in the forthcoming cricket match, who patrolled the streets in a four-in-hand, decked in the most ludicrous costumes. Their individuality was concealed by ample and unsightly masks ; they wore, of course, distinctively feminine garments, and were further provided with quaintly shaped Japanese parasols. It is not surprising that this ensemble should have struck terror into the unreasoning minds of many quadrupeds that they encountered on their way, and in the neighbourhood of North-East Valley one animal attached to a light cart, was incited to perform a rather hesitating and harmless bolt. By a circuitous route he somehow again came up with the objects of his fright, who had paused for refreshment at an hotel, and was ignominiously captured by them without damage having been done, and after only a feeble effort at resistance.

Not long ago a venerable Scotch elder was obliged one Sabbath to walk several miles to get to kirk ; he was accompanied by a young man, who, when they had proceeded for an hour in silence, ventured to remark that it wasa “grand day,” whereupon quoth the other, “Whist mon; is the Lora’s day a suitable time to be clavering about the weather ’’’—London ‘ ‘ Truth. ”

The “ greatest plague in life ” is prevalent among the ladies of the United States as it is in New Zealand, to judge by the following advertisement in an American paper :— “ Wanted a cook, good or bad, with or without recommendations to remain for life or a few moments. The further inducement is offered to such a cook that the highest wages will be paid in advance, and that the family will be docile and obedient.”

A sergeant of police entered a certain hostelry in Sydney one Sunday lately. As he put his foot in the house he observed three “ long beers ” on the counter, and several apparent customers sitting round. The publican was equal to the occasion. He sang out to his son, “Jem, I'm very thirsty to-day, and can drink the three pints you have just drawn For me.” And taking up the “ long sleveers,” he swallowed them off one after another, before the astonished officer could, interfere.