WOWSER AND HIS OPPOSITE.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 24 August 1917, Page 5

WOWSER AND HIS OPPOSITE.

MR. ISITT TURNS ON CRITICS. DEFINITION OF A SOWSER. WELLINGTON, August 23. Cleverly adapting a section from Billy Sunday’s whimsical sermons, Mr. Isitt, who is dubbed “Wowser” by some of his fellow members, turned the tables on them to-night with an elaborate amusing definition of the opposite type to the wowser, which he called the “sowser. ” He intended, he said, to hammer away on the old note of the imperative need of economy. The four great sources of waste in New Zealand were drink, gambling, pleasure and display. Doubtless this would excite the intense indignation of the “sowsers. ” Members looked up inquiringly i at the mention of the strange word, and Mr. Isitt went on to interpret it. “The sowser,’-’ ne said, “is a creature half animal, half man. He’s loyal, he loves his country, but loves his stomach better. He loes his country’s, wuisky, and is known by his patriotic splurge. He pumps up, apparently from the region of his boots, utterances which seem a strange and inadequate return for all the physical exercise involved. He’s a somewhat vain animal. If ho’s had university education he is carried away by the fact, and forgets you cannot make a silk purse out of a sowser’s ear. (Loud laughter.) The sowse'r,” he continued, “is implacable in his hatred of the wowser, .and eternally manifests it by porcine .grunts of disapproval. He’s timid, but sometimes in his intense desire to strafe his enemy, he throws all precautions to the winds. On these occasions the wowser quotes poetry, generally Burns. (Laughter.) “For years,” concluded Mr. Isitt, similingly, “I’ve allowed gibes and jeers, to be fired off at the expense of the wowser but its . about time to show that even a worm like wowser sometimes turns.” (Renewed laughter.) „