OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Observer, Volume 5, Issue 120, 30 December 1882, Page 249

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

— . ♦ ■ M, is the attraction at Northcote for all iVoung men, and has that pair of stockings ■jjiJDg to do with it ? « American's rich wife insisted on having all ,<jress boxes six feet long, so that her dresses Ugo in without bending them. tore is said to be a good field for a Mormon aonary among the old maids of Whangarei, the rumour that Captain S. has received injefcions to collect and send away a shipload is ioritatively denied. B auctioneer, before a sale, remarked to a si about a liqueur-stand that it was worth £5, lie supposed some fool of a woman would give o r it. He found it on his side table at home, cted at £12. here are expectations at no distant date of two itiqns to our by no means small Royal Family. ! Duchess of Connaught and the Duchess of my are both in that condition in which ladies ,!ove their lords delight to be. S#ne •' -A- station on the Kaipara line. Pitch j night. Station Master to Porter: "Mind t switch for the down train." Porter : "All lt )B ir." Five minutes later. S.M.: " Why, it the blazes are you doing ?" Porter : ritching." S.M.: "Hang you! This ainf [switcli handle ; that's my nose." [he following unique invitation was issued by ■ Secretary of tke Kaukapakapa Bachelors' I Committee :— " Kaukap&kapa, Dec. 18th, 13.— The Kaukapakapa bachelors present their jpliments to Miss — , and regret the pleasure her company at the annual ball on January 1883, in the school-room ." Of course, regrets vain. [he following ad., we need scarcely say, is ped from a paper in Tipperary :— " Dinnis— it Bhoot, but. come back and all will be foreo. Patsey is taking you for the wrong man. i Michael Muldoon, of Ballynamore, that's nted." This must have been a cheerful item the other Muldoon to ponder over. lake blessed calm after a tornado, like sunshine the Polar seas, like ice-cream with a girl after owwith a dun, like, everything that is beautitand loveable, and happy is the peace that has leu upon the erstwhile .perturbed Panmure — e belle was married last week! We pity the nmurians. They are in the disgusting position Laving nothing to quarrel about, and all the fis gone out of their lives. If those individuals at Te Aroha who make a ictice of. waiting outside the church every Sunt evening . call themselves gentlemen, it is a at pity they so degrade themselves as to be a ate" of annoyance *to both the clergyman and sgregation by their coarse jokes and disgraceful Saviour under the windows of the church, >ecially that young "knight of the theodolite." it a water suburb, recently, e&me ladies gave a iy, and about midnight a well-known pedestrian oming sleepy> some lively young ladies assisted gentlemen clipped off the slumberer's mousie..' He took it quietly when he awoke, but i of the young men who assisted as barbers c since had their personal appearance altered, 1 have been going about in a sadly dilapidated dition. So all parties are now satisfied. 3aron Wilhelm Rothschild, of Frankfort, who i £237,500 a year, is a strict Jew, and always rels with his codfc, butcher, and ten devout aelites to pray with him. • That's how he spends money. He is always either eating or praying, i can't pray alone, for it takes ten to make up a rah congregation, whereas with us only " two three" require "to be gathered together." e have asked all our friends to gather together <1 have a go in } but they don't seem to roll up mehow. Perhaps they will, though, when we Te £237,500 a year. Mr John Cockrell, editor of the St. Louis Postupatch, recently announced that one Colonel Jjback was a pimple-headed, blister-brained, dl-eyed, owl-faced, web-footed, turkey-crawed, ing, crawling, tool of the democratic party, and se remarks somewhat hurt the Colonel's oversitive feelings. Next day he dropped in on t Cockrell, and after exchanging compliments - pair exchanged bullets. Cockrell shot Mr lyback through the head, but the latter didn't it/-bac&. In fact he died in three minutes. as ia worse than the verdict of an Auckland toner's jury. A few weeks ago, a very respectable young gen'■aan who would get drunk, and split a poficeto's pants, was run in, and his name was — well ■ us say Fuzzier — that won't hurt anyone's His. Being a v smarty," however, he gave his monniker" as John Smith. Next morning he •eared before the "Binch " and pleaded guilfcy. "y Smith convictions, sergeant ?" asked the • " Yes, your wusship," replied the sergeant, K find John Smith has been up eight times for Rjflkenness; and twice for righteous conduct." •ined £5, or seven days in gaol." And thus Mr fczler had to pay for the sins of another, &ough this was his first offence. Be honest tot sober and the fine will only be a crown. *he Prince of Wales — that intrepid F.M. — has *& having a good old time at Hamburg. He •J been trying to lose flesh, and taking baths % composed of pine extract, Mannheim salt, to filings, sarsaparilla, and, we suppose,, water. [Hamburg, H.R.H. made the acquaintance of *> Chamberlaine, an American young lady, "o he established as a beauty. Miss C. used be invited to join the Prince's lawn tennis iv- This vras very agreeable to the feelings of *8 Chamberlaine — very much so — Bat when the dad heard that the Prince His daughter favour forced on. He took her ear and made her wince, And lagged her back to Boston. *We is a legend in one of the neighbouring "lies of a man who started as an ostler ; got to 4 aail-driver ; saved money ; took a public"ws then went into a brewery ; made more "«y ; bought out a huge city freehold ; went * squatting ; , piled up cash ; "retired from "aess," being paid out with a fortune ; often feat land from the Government .at nominal *«» and sold same for thousands. One day ?yhe walked into a stock-agent's, and told & in a matter-of-fact way to buy Mm a station \" a hundred thousand sheep "r— nothing te! Then he went to his wine-merchant^ and

asked him to send two bottles of beer home to : the mansion he had built out of town, and insisted on taking the cellar-man out for a drive. Only fun! But the doctors call it softening of the brain, and have him watched as though he were one of his own sheep. Exit good fellow ! Tral-la-la! Pass the bottle, dear boys! Fizz and frailty! Frost! Lampadia exentes diadosonism tyllelois ! 1 Oscar Wilde was born some years ago. At the early age of four months, his Ma came upon him one day sucking a lily, and saying, " Pretty, pretty ;" which convinced her that his tastes were pure. She fed him on cake and candy, and he had sunflowers as playthings. 'Now he has developed into the nipst aesthetically tender and incredibly virtuous young man on earth. He is as intense as he is ungainly, and has contracted the fatal vice of writing verses. He travels for the purpose of enlightening the world about the hidden meaning of the horse-shoe in art, and to tell why lilies grow limp. He knows why a goose Stands on'one leg, an aesthete on two, a fire-dog on three, and a saw-horse on four. He brings mankind face to face with the utmost, the far-off, the unattainable, and the dim. Wind him up and let him pose ! We never knew that Howick possessed a "chimney sweep, though it always had. the credit of possessing many things curious and rare. We have discovered that it possesses a " chumney " by a scrap of soot-begrimmed paper, which has evidently been carried in the soot-bag for safekeeping, sent to us with the request " pleas put i theas bits in." To put them in. properly we should require a brush and a pot of blacking, and as these articles have been^mislaid by the reduced baronet who earns a frugal crust by cleaning the boots of the staff, we must hold the item over for the present — over the waste paper basket, where it has descended as the soot which covers it descends from a chimney when brushed down by the gifted author of fche MSS., and now nestles

snugly along with fifteen poems, a billet doux (commercial note paper), a paper collar, and a free invitation to a sponge cake and hot water struggle.

Somebody sends us the soul-stirring announcement that Holman was the best dancer at the Kamo ball. We intended to cable this item home te the London Times as a " collect telegram," if the counter-clerk hadn't sent for a policeman and threatened to lock us up for medical examination. We don't know Holman, but he must be a wonderful man to carry off the prize as boss-dancer among a crowd of prancing gumdiggers and jumping coal-heavers. If Holman is for sale cheap we would like to invest in a part of him — say his legs — and Barnumise him round the world as the man who jumped highest and kicked hardest at a bush ball. It would knock the aesthetics. That much-wived man, who wrote those songs Of Susanah and Sol'mon, 1 Could never hold a pair of tongs To our boss-dancer, Holman ; Though David danced before the ark, And thought it was no harm, oh, He was not much to play a lark With Holman, of the Kamo. The industry and perseverance of some bush poets is marvellous. Judiciously applied to hoeing turnips or feeding pigs it would speedily give them a competence ; but, as it is, they are simply wasting their sweetness on the desert air. It is all very "well to have music in one's soul, and all the rest of it, but to play a symphony on a penny whistle is futile, not to say foolish. It is not absolutely necessary that a poet should be able to spell correctly, bukhe should at least k,now something of prosody. In this connection we take j leave to recommend an Oruawharo man, named Charles Heywooc}, who has twice sent us some doggerell which would raise the hair on a dead dog, written on paper which even a hungry shark would. reject with loathing, to go and take i a rest, or else forward his communications to I Kamsbottom. We, don't harbour any sanguinary intentions towards Bamsbottom— he istoogood'iurf

for that — but we should like to make things lively for him, and Heywood's poetry is the very best thing to do it. ' A demented poet from the district of Yahoobahulaloo, somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood of Eaglan, has been pouring forth Tiis woes, like the sighing of a inelanonoly breakingdown saw in a gale of wind. He gushe3 thusly : " There is a foolish. lad, Hia name is Di<jk-e ; He's gone <sompletely"*inad On everybody's Jess-e." "We are now going to tune our harp-"-one of Professor Swallow's favourites — in fact, the oarticular harp twanged by a certain young lady at., the last Revitt concert, — and strike some harmonious chord. We should pvefeivto strike the Yahoobahulaloo poet, if we could reach him, or give him a cord, but alas ! for the vanity of human wishes ! Here goes — " There is a silly poet, . His name is — blank, Although, he doesn't know it, He is a crank." Then the poet proceeds to show how "Dickee" wanted " Jessie " to name the happy day, and how that estimable young woman recommended him to go home and " begin anew," and not flirt any more. If some one would kindly name the happy day when the Raglan poet will be hanged, drawn, and quartered, or even drowned in a duck pond, he would earn our lasting gratitude ; but ■ until that happy event, we would, in a spirit of Keristian charity, recommend our afflicted friend to go home and help his poor mother to hang out the clothes. Philosophers who investigate further than the mere appearance of things, now offer another explanation of the well-known custom of young women fondling or gently smoothing down the raven locks of their lovers. They say that it is an inherited propensity derived from theif mothers, of involuntarily taking this method or ascertaining the best places to grab for, in those domestic disputes likely to occur after marriage.

HOW TO MANAGE A LOVES,, WITH A VIEW TO MATRIMONY AND FUTURE HAPPINESS.

The seven ladies who have written essays on the above subject have all made one grand mistake, and it is a mistake that nearly everyone makes in some form or other : they all take for granted that there is a something which is' generally called chance — sometimes it is called accident, sometimes lack, sometimes fortune. Sometime ago Mr J. C. Firth wrote a little book to show that there was no such thing as luck, and he did it so b&clly that he would have done better to have left the subject alone ; but he was quite right in his assertion that there is no such thing as luck. Now the seven essayists have rested all their say on this mistake — they have erected their essays on " a sandy foundation." They assume that they and their readers have the power to choose a lover, regulate -a courtship, and do it upon such principles that the result shall be happiness. What a delusion ! The fact is that all of us, both men and women, have only freedom to regulate ourselves so far. as right or wrong, good or bad, is concerned ; all *the rest is regulated, directed, and governed 'by G-od. . Longfellow says in his beautiful poem, " The Psalm of Life "— " And thinga are nojb wliat they seem." . Nevertheless the appearance of chance,. of accident, of luck," &c.. is complete. For instance, when a young man and maid meet for the first, time, they cannot know that this apparently | chance meeting is to be followed by their being yoked-together or married. It will first appear to them that their meeting was a chance, and then it will appear to them that their conduct to one another was the cause of their being married. This, however, is only the appearance. The fact is that God sees that they in themselves* are such that the course of action they appear to themselves to have taken is the best for them ; and, as I eaid before, they, and all of us, have

only power over ourselves to influence ourselves. God does all, God does everything. But this in no way relieves us. from responsibility, because we are responsible to God for what we ourselves are, and God acts through us accordingly. f People sometimes say, and very often think, that ' if God had placed them in a different position, how differently they would have acted, and how much better it would have been for all concerned. That they would have acted, differently under different circumstances is only another way of saying that if things were different they would be different ; but to say that they would be better is presumption of the grossest and most insulting kind. God has given us perfect freedom, to improve ourselves, but it would be an end of His government, His order, and everything else, if we could act just as our fancy and caprice might lead us. ; All the seven ladies that have written essays on the above subject bring forcibly tci one's mind the fable about the man and the donkey who tried to please everyone, and succeeded in pleasing no one. The very idea of trying to please anyone is a delusion. Only think what a nonsensical thing it must be seen to be by anyone who has any sense at all to suppose Jesus Christ trying to please people, or trying to. please even I one person, the same as the essayists recommend j that one person shall be pleased j and it is just as stupid to try and give annoyance. " Birdie " is right when she says, "Always be true, and do not pretend to be what you are not." This assertion contains the whole pith and meaning of what is meant in the Bible by " Wives, obey your husbands." It should, however, be known that the word true is the counter-part of the word good ; the two things expressed by the words truth and goodness cannot be separated. However, I am not going into philosophy in a direct manner ; if I were, it would be necessary to attempt a demonstration of the fact that marriage in its primary form is the union of truth and goodness, and the union of man and woman the ultimate form of marriage. But perhaps I may be allowed a word abdut the philosophy of Miss/ "Amicus Humani Generis." Let us suppose that her philosophy is correct ; then, in the interests of all that is reasonable, how is she going to apply it ? She says, " Weakly men and children are unfavour- • able to love." I have here to tell her point blank that she should have used the word lust, and not the word love. No doubt she will admit that there is as great a distance between the meaning of the two words as there is between Heaven and Hell ; and no doubt most people will admit thata philosophy erected on such a misapplication of words must be false and detrimental in the extreme. She asks, "On what do men spdnd so freely as on love?" I will tell her no; what men spend more freely on is adultery. She speaks of people being "most miserable" and " hopelessly wretched." I must tell her straight that no one has a right to be so ; the fault is in themselves, and not, as she intimates, in the circumstances in which God finds it necessary to ■ place them. I have it in my mind to give an example illustrating the absurdity of thinking to apply the philosophy of "Amicus Humani Generis," but it would make this letter too long. That Widowee. [We have allowed "Widower" to criticise the essays ; and now, we suppose, a score or two of people will be burning with impatience to criticise " Widower." All we have to say, just at present, is, that if God, and not the mere accidents of juxta-positioa and so forth, makes marriages', then a good many people would prefer the element of chance, and to marry after their own choice. If God is responsible for all marriages, as " That Widower " appears to argue, then He is »lso equally responsible for the bad consequences that too often result from ill-assorted matches. We are willing to admit that " God does all, God does everything,'.' but only as the Great First Cause, and not as a mere meddler in all the petty details of life. If we are to suppose that the Deity chooses a wife for a man, then, of course it follows that courtship is a waste of time, and a wooer need do nothing else than go to a woman and say, "Jemima, or "Angelina," as the ease may be, "the Lord has directed (acting through us,* as we are) that we should get married at once* ancl you have only to fix the day." "That Widower" speaks about the thoughts and modes of action of the Deity as if he were in personal communicawith Him by telephone, and authorised to reprer sent His views. As we are not going to be drawn «, into a theological discussion, for which a society journal is not designed, we beg to intimate that we shall not admit any further correspondence on this question ; and while we are willing to allow "That Widower "to have his say, we shall no.£in future publish any contribution of his which, leaves the domain of the practical ;and scientifically demonstrable, and passes into that of the vague and undefined. Ed. Obs.]