A DISASTROUS PUZZE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 263, 1 June 1880, Page 3

A DISASTROUS PUZZE.

Wanted three competent men to fill vac-an-ises on the editorial etoff.-The sad circumstances which called out the above aclvm- , -tisement are as follows :-In yesterdays ■ - editorial column appeared a notice that a man / ’ "named Shores had married his step-daughter, ' /A - J who was also his cousin, being an uncle’s daughter by his (Shore’s) deceased wife’s former marriage. The city editor thoughtlessly asked—“ What relation would the children by this marriage, and their children, sustain to the parents ?” The whole force attempted to solve the problem, with terrible results. “In the first place,” said the city editor, the children would he their father’s and mother’s second cousins; and their grand father would be their grand uncle by their father’s side, while their grandmother would be their grandaunt and also step-mother, as well as their father's wife. Hence, they dbe their own children —Gracious ; twice nothing are nothing and two to carry.” And then he tried to stab himself with a copybook. J-lien the night editor said : “As he married his . wife’s daughter, the mother is sister to her own children, and her husband must he then-brother-in-law, and if he is such, being also a cousin to his wife, her children are his second cousins, and she must be cousin to her husband, so he’s his own cousin, and being his own cousin he must have been also bis v 'cousins, ‘and bis uncles and his aunts—and so do his cousins his uncles and his aunts—-ana so do his cousins and his—” And rig it here it became necessary to fasten the night editor into his chair, where he s-ts wildly ‘ epealing, “and so do his uncle?, and his cousins and. Ins aunts,” a hopeless idiot, Then the cdiUnattached it, and in two mioutesTie made the ■children their own mothers in-law, and one or them he declared was her own granamoi b r, after which he was delivered up to the po ice for safe keeping The problem was taken up by the “ comps,” and in half an hour every man was sitting with s:a i-g eyes, m uring with his finger on the bael of his hanu, and swearing Shores had mar.ieo o■- giea g'.m mother without a license, while the. tu-vil i jumped out of the window unclei She impre - : sion he was his own ancestor