What Everybody Says.

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1795, 3 October 1874, Page 3

What Everybody Says.

"In multitude of counsellors there is safety.

" —Old Proverb " Thank goodness that Hospital business is done at last," everybody will feel inclined to say. For several weeks now it has afforded food for scandal; something like amusement for those Wormwoods in the community who delight in seeing people at loggerheads — whose highest pleasure it is to know that those who should be associated only for good are in antagonism and at daggers drawn. There are those who have fomented the differences of the committee-men by every means in their power; some of them have means at their disposal which they used without scruple : they,have prostituted whatever of brains they possess and the position, in which they find themselevs by a chain of fortuitous circumstances. Their part will be remembered against them, and if they be nof altogether lost to a sense of decency— honor they know not the meaning of—a time will come when the conviction will force itself upon them that they have taken that broad road which leadeth to destruction. Meantime, everybody will be on the tiptoe of expectation to see how the Provincial Government will get on with a business which the Hospital Committee tacitly admit they cannot compass. t It would seem that all the Thames spiritualists have not followed their leaders to fields new and pastures green; (that's a very old way of putting it, when one wants to make a polite reference to " going away "); that is, the Thames followers of spiritualism prefer to stay and take their chance with the gentiles, or barbarians, or whatever they may please to call those outside the pale of the spirits, to casting in their lot for a small allotment in the chimerical Aurelia They have their mediums, however, and their seances ; and between the two they manage to make some progress before leaving for that higher state of existence which their belief teaches awaits them. At a seance the other nght—which according to what has transpired through the medium of one who was permitted to be present in the charmed circle was conducted according to orthodox principles— a woman's curiosity prompted her to enquire of the medium what somebody was doing who had gone to his account. Now this somebody— so 'tis said—had been noted for very forcible language; in fact he had been given to adorn his colloquialisms with a superabundance of those strong adjectives usually denoted by dashes in polite literature. The medium, on being appealed to "wrastled" with her subject, and the answer came, which showed that the ruling. passion was strongvery strong in the higher sphere. It was expressed in the words " Go to " The enquirer was naturally shocked ; -the circle was shocked; and the seance wits promptly terminated. Another story of spiritualism:— this time slightly prophetic. An enquirer wanted to know of absent friends whose whereabouts was uncertain. The persons enquired for were father and son, supposed to be in -America. The medium at once placed herself in communication with the other world, and after a time gravely informed the circle that the father died in New York on a certain day, arid that the son perished by a steam boiler explosion on one of the big rivers of America. One of the elect has promised to let everybody know if this partial prophesy turns out to be correct. It may eventuate, but the chances are that the medium was sufficiently acquainted with certain conditions to make a haphazard kind of guess -which is not likely to be disproved by/elifble information. A horsey story has been going the rounds of late, in which a ludicrous element was .conspicuous. Two jovial souls after liberal imbibations mounted the wrong horses. One fared well; the other got lambasted. There was a very good story told of a genial officer of Her Majesty's forces who was in the early days quartered at Taranaki. .There was not much in the way of amusement, and the gallant officer was in the habit, after making his men snug for the night, of riding into New Plymouth. ■ Sometimes he stayed very late. On one occasion ne tied his horse to a fence intending 1o stay bur, a very short, time with his bcon companions, But good company and potent j

liquor mastered' his good resolution, aridj: ho rcmairieV tlie. customary spell. When ; he rose-to leave his sense* were slightly obscured, but ho managed to mount his horse and \yas very so>n sleeping. He woke up at daybreak, very cold! and found that before mounting he had forgotten to detach the horse's bridle from the fence. The good company he had left, by socrse unfortunate circumstance had prolonged their sitting, and they just broke up in time to witness the discomfiture of their companion, at whose expense they then and there, enjoyed a hearty, laugh, which was not the la At time, for the unlucky officer never heard the cast of his escapade—at least, until a Maori bullet some time after gave him his quietus.

Our Borough Councillors affect a joke occasionally — not very piquant, perhaps; rather personal than otherwise. A question of horses arose at the meeting the other night:; Councillors were congratulatingthetnselves on the saving effected by keeping ahorse, and some one suggested getting, another —a new horse, if the saving was so manifest, when the witty member suggested that as they had one horse, perhaps it. would?be advisable to get a new mare (Mayor). For a wonder the other councillors saw the intended joke, and the perpetrator was thus saved from having a vote of censure recorded against him for a premeditated reflection on the civic chief. That joke is about as atrocious as one attempted by the minstrels the other night. In a- discourse on benzine one. M the darkies said a drop of this fluid would burn a hole through a cork. A man had taken a small potation the other day and he hadn't " been seen " since. The pepetrators are not to be prosecuted.