Current Comment.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 4, 22 April 1893, Page 9

Current Comment.

(By Touchstone.) ; “ She advised them to keep out on the road if they wanted to. a squaring up, so as to Save this windows.” So is reported to have said the better half of an hotelkeeper living near Invercargill, when giving evidence in a case in which two men had come to blow's. There’s presence of mind for you ! Some women would have “lost their heads ” when the scrimmage occurred, hut not so the lady in, question. There may be women who would scream at sight of a mouse, but it is evident she is not of the number. She kept cool and saw to it that her windows remainep intact no matter what happened.

Using the Hew Zealand postage stamps for advertising, purposes appeal’s to have excited very little cqnxment, .It has, according tp our Tapanui correspondent, been reserved for a woman there to take exception to the innovation. She concluded that the stamps on which the virtues of certain soap and coals w r ere advertised w 7 ere damaged, and asked to be supplied with the old-fashionedarticle. Some people don’t take kindly to modern developments, It is hard to say what is before us. . It is just possible that bald-headed men may he. able to turn their lack of head covering to good account. A row of them at a meeting, or entei’tainment, each with his cranium adorned with an artistic advertisement, would prove a big draw.

The age of romance has surely fled. The other day an unromantie young man at Home sued a young lady for "breach of promise of marriage. She paid £2O into court in fall settlement of the claim. It appeared that she had broken off the engagement because her father was angry, and because the plaintiff was a comparatively poor man. Her lawyer remarked that the plaintiff wanted to get his client’s money, and in the result the jury found for the lady and ordered the return to her of the money paid into court. The action of the Charitable Aid Board in raising the salaries of their officials has led to a lot of correspondence in the daily papers. A good deal of it is beside the mark. Personalities in a case of that kind will not serve the public. "What is wanted is an authoritative statement of the real position. There should surely be no difficulty in getting at the truth, as between the statement on the one side that the secretary’s duties can be done in an hour per day, and the assertion on the other that he is kept busy most of his time. The public have a right to know who is telling the truth in this matter —Mr Baldey (a representative of the public) or certain anonymous newspaper correspondents. So Te Kooti the notorious has gone to his rest. He had long since ceased from troubling* but time was when his blood-thirsty deeds filled the settlers of the North Island with dread. He was the prime mover in the terrible Poverty Bay massacre of a quarter of a century ago, and was one of the most wily and ferocious of the foes with whom the Pakeha had to deal. He was pardoned some years ago, and a late Native Minister enjoyed the doubtful honour of shaking hands with him.