ODDS AND ENDS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4374, 16 February 1909, Page 2

ODDS AND ENDS.

One would imagine that musbrooms were very scarce at present, when a party of ladies went all the way to Mangaiti, and returned home wi h only two.

The Te aroha News certainly claims to be a progressive journal, but' the wildest claims advanced by it- most ardent friends were beggared the other day when a small boy walked into the office and asked for a “Te Aroha Buster !” .

Tom Smith, commenting upon the mysterious methods of the Dominion Railway Department, “ I say that’s a funny man you keep at the railway station.”

Jack Joups : “ How do you mean ?” T. S. : Why, I was down there the other day sendiug away a hat, and he charged me a shilling,* and another" woman was sending away a hundred of potatoes and he only charged her the sirne.” DENNIS’S EXPERIMENT. *• Och ! Dennis, darlint, what is you’re doing ?” . V /■ “ Whisht, Biddy ; Use Acdn’ an experiment.” . “Murtlnr! Wj»at is it m “ Why. it’s giving hot watber to the chickens I am, so that they’ll bo afther laying boiled eggs.” IF WOMEN WOULD REALISE. It is said that a bad-tempered woman can < ause more actual unpleasantness for the rest of humanity than all the other disagreeable features one finds in life, and the unlucky possessor of an uncoil! rolled temper should remedy the fault as soon as possible. The woman who can control herself under the most trying circumstances is the woman who holds the strongest power over her fellow-creatures. No matter how beautiful and clever and fascinating the bad-tempered woman may be, her power is infinitesimal compared with that of her amiable sister. And amiability is not only power, it is mental progression and health, and happiness, and long life to one’s self and to one’s friends and family, DREAD OF THIRTEEN, The 13 superstition originally arose among the Norsemen, for it is recorded in the old Norse mythology thatfthe god Balder was slain at a banquet at which there were 13 guests, and, as being slain was just as unpopular an experience then as it is now. the number came to be regarded as an ilLomen. In Christian countries it is generally supposed that the belief had its origin in the Last Supper, but. as a matter of fact, it is of a far older date.

In many lands it is regarded far more seriously than it is iu England, The Turks, for instance, so dislike the number that the word is almost expunged from their vocabulary. ' The Italians never make u*e“or®t in making up their lotteries. ' Iu Paris no house bears the number; while people called “ Quartozieunes ” are 'often hired out at a pinch to malic a 14th at dinner parties.