TALK ABOUT TOWN.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 54, 12 October 1878, Page 2

TALK ABOUT TOWN.

" Th’ro’e a child aiming ye lakia notes, 1 And faith he’ll prent them." A couple of days ago I was informed on good authority, that some remarks of mine in last week’s “Talk About Town’ have given such mortal offence to a J«rson whose name need not be mentioned, that he threatens to “cow-hide the writer’ if he can procure a whip suitable for the purpose, and discover the person of the writer. This is a terrible tlireat, coming from such a stalthwnrt, powerful and ablebodied man as the individual alluded to, whoso side-whiskers alone are enough to strike terror into the hearts of small boys and town talk scribblers. The effect of ! this fearful resolve upon my constitution | and nerves has been disastrous ; I have | lost two pounds in weight, more or less ; I my appetite has left me, and my nights I are passed in sleepless, feverish anxiety. Just as lam dozing oil'to sleep, the j vision of this wrathful person appears I before me ; in his right hand a cow-hide i whip, of tile best quality and stoutest i material; his left hand gently stroking down his long silken whiskers,—the kind that ladies are said to admire so much, — while his otherwise impassive face is lighted up with a Satanic-liko smile so terrible to behold that 1 awake with a ; cry of tenor, bathed in perspiration and j shaking like an aspen leaf. When suf- • luring iron one oi those visitations, I cry

out ill my anguish:—U! til m grout and honourable person, orator sublime and minister divine; poet, philosopher and administrator, whose acts and opinions may not be criticised or gainsaid, what have 1 said or done to stir up your wrath to a cow-hiding pitch. Withdraw your terrible threat. "Avaunt! and quit my sight:"—you know the rest. The German war-ship "Ariadne," now lying in harbour, was, I am told, rated as a saluting ship when in Sydney, from whence sho arrived on Tucsd iv lost. When she was here last, H. li. Majesty's Consul paid his respects to tho Captain onshore, at the Gorman Consulate; and on Thursday last the United States Consul visited tho Captain oti board, and was accorded a salute of seven guns on leaving the ship. Some surprise was expressed on the beach that tho American Consul received honours which wore not given to tho British Consul on the ship's previous visit.. But the fact that, at that time the "Ariadne" was not rated as a saluting ship will, no doubt, explain the matter satisfactorily to those British residents who naturally thought that the American Consul had received greater honours than their ow:: Consul. Cyril.