TEE IRISH PILGRIM.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2342, 18 September 1880, Page 2

TEE IRISH PILGRIM.

Mr J. P. Armstrong, the genial dentist, has changed his profession and emerged as a public lecturer. His first professional lecture was delivered on Thursday night, in the Academy of Music, Christchurch, and it heartily amused his audience. During a recent visit to the Rakaia district, the Pilgrim had the misfortune, through the bursting of a petroleum lamp, to lose every scrap of hair, from a magnificent pair of whiskers even to his ejmbrows. He consequently labored under the disadvantage of having to appear before the people of Christchurch like the historic priest, “ all shaven and shorn.” Mr Armstrong, however, is diligently cultivating a young crop, and in the course of a few weeks he hopes to bo able to bow to a Timaru audience,with his facial appendages in thorough repair. If he is in his usual high spirits his lectures will be a specific for the heart-ache or any other ache. He possesses a fund of wit that is practically inexhaustible, and his humorous anecdotes have the rare merit of thorough originality. Some of his captious critics find fault with him for talking so much about himself, but it would be difficult to find a better subject. The personal reminiscences of a political dentist of Mr Armstrong’s varied experiences should produce one of the most delightful entertainments that has ever been presented to an audience in the colonies.