ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2187, 22 March 1880, Page 2

ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

Sonic capital books have been written on tlic vicissitudes of great personages and noble families, and most interesting reading those records make. But wlio has taken the trouble to chronicle the vicissitudes of the counterfeit presentments, the waxen ctllgies of these illustrious individuals, with which we arc all more or less familiar ? And jet what adventures the figures in a waxwork show could tell, if they could only speak ! I have been led to these reflections by reading (lie announcement in a Jhinedin paper that the waxwork show that was exhibited in Timaru a short time since, has just been knocked down at —considering the collection embraces Her Most Gracious Majesty and several members of the Royal Family—the ridiculously low figure of I' 1-3 ! Why the jewellery adorning the persons of the aforesaid illustrious ones should, in auction parlance, be worth double the money! There is something almost pathetic in the announcement above referred to. It is this. “To-day Madame Mantalini’s ."Royal Waxworks will be brought to 111 o hammer, and if not disposed of in bulk, will he put up in lots to suit purchasers !” The idea of bujdng the Royal Family “in bulk,” or having the Wantabadgery bushrangers “ put up in lots to suit purchasers!” Sic transit yluria mundi. The “ Bruce Standard ” is disgusted with the hollow mockery of the “ Own

Correspondent ” business. In a recent issue of that journal we arc informed (hat it does not go in for the expensive luxury (?) of a Paris letter, and trusts its subscribers will excuse this want of enterprise. It has been lately studying some of those epistolary productions in the columns of (chiefly) country contemporaries, and has come to the conclusion that if they come from Paris they arc dear at the cost of postage. Those effusions (continues the ‘’Standard”) chiefly consist of stale old yarns, worn out years ago, and bits of intelligence hashed up from telegrams and mail news, and can as easily be written in the colony as iu Paris. Put the public is easily taken in, and it certainly looks well to head a column iu an up-country'journal, “Paris —From our own Correspondent! ”

Mr Harry Friedlandcr gave a rather curious definition of a gentleman the other day at Ashburton. Mr Friedlander was a witness in the libel case, and on getting into the box he replied, in answer to the usual question as to what he was, “I am a gentleman now ; but formerly I was rate-col-lector for the Porough.” Ergo a rate - collector is not a gentleman—according to Mr Friedlander that is—but,there! Mr Friedlander was evidently doubtful about the exact meaning of the term, and wisely refrained from too closely defining what he did not understand !

That was a splendid story related in a Home journal, the other day, of an Irish gentleman dining at his Club iu London After glancing down the wine lists for a minute or two, he observed in a solemn voice to the waiter in attendance, ‘ Waiter, bring me a glass of pure spring water.” All eyes were turned upon the gentleman, whose appearance betokened him anything but a water drinker. Just as the waiter reached the door, a loud whisper from the stout gentleman arrested him on the threshhold, “ And, waiter, just put a couple of wine-glasses of pure Irish whiskey into it !” QUILP.