OMNIUM GATHERUM,

Observer, Volume 5, Issue 131, 17 March 1883, Page 425

OMNIUM GATHERUM,

The Sydney Bulletin, commenting on the proposal to raise a memorial to the late G-overnor Hobson by public subscription, offers the following outrageous suggestion : — We should say, if the people of N.Z. want to appropriately and usefully commemorate this departed old Governor, they should exhume his bones and make dice out of them. These might be placed in Parliament House for politicians to throw Yankee grab for office with.

There was a fatal accident in an up-country newspaper office the other day. A nervous typo probably suffering from the effects of excessive drinking of impure water or limejuice pympla, upset a " forme." The editor, next day, apologised for the scantiness of the news, and informed his readers that a large part of the material prepared, for that issue had been converted into " pie." A witty subscriber remarked that the printer must be a deuced bad cook, seeing that he had made a hash of the pie.

The Star once performed a useful work by taking on two seperate occasions a census of the churchgoers of Auckland. The same feat was lately attempted by a, Temperance Society in an English town, in which there are 25 churches and 35 public houses. On a Sunday in November last the local Temperance Society counted the people who went to worship G-od, and the number who went to pay their devoirs to the devil. The devil headed the poll with 5691 to 5570. And only two hours' traffic; was counted ! The iiioral of this seems to be that people should be allowed to take their bottle of beer with them to church. It would be an excellent antidote against dry sermons, anyhow.

A young — very young poet sends us some, doggerel from Panmure with a piteous appeal to publish it because it took him two hours to make the verses. The first verse runs —

An aristocratic young sewer, Who come all the way to Panrnure, And, without breaking his bones, Went straight down to Malone's And enquired if dear Rosy was in. The other verse was too awful for anything. In fact it would be highly dangerous to publish it in the present condition of the atmosphere until we have insured the lives of all the men and boys in the office. The poet signs himself " Brass-tip." This appears to be the " straight tip," for there must be a deal of brass in his composition. The following lines were composed by a " Mount Eden Gaol Canary " : — Here lie the bones of Robert Low, Where he's gone to I don't know; If to the realms of peuce and love Farewell to happiness above ; If happily to some lower level, I can't congratulate the devil. Apropos of the difference between Dr Mackellar and the female nurses, we once knew a boy in our young days who spent a considerable time in a female ward ; and we know for a fact that the knowledge he gained there was of a miscellaneous and most comprehensive character. The little rascal demoralized the whole school, and was always listened to with the greatest attention, and considered an undoubted authority on female dresses. An Auckland boy, of eight, after six months in such a place would be fully entitled to a diploma, and should be allowed to practice. It is not generally known that the Kaiser of G-errnany and the Crown Prince are on cool terms. • William, it may be remarked, has a good ' many of the sunny social proclivities of George the First (of glorious memory), and one morning the Red Prince having important business with the Emperor, sought his apartments without ceremony, by a private stair. On the landing he met a fat woman, with her hair in curl-papers, and a dusky flannel gown. "How," demanded the Prince of an equerry who stood near — " how is it that the Palace sweepers are allowed on the Emperor's staircase ?" " That's not a sweeper,", your Highness, was the reply, " that's " . Anyhow next time young "William saw his dad, he perceived that he was huffed. So, as we have said, they are cool. Our Port Albert laureate, who is rapidly qualifying himself for a niche in the temple of fame, or an apartment in a more substantial class of building, sends the following touching idyl :— The wind came down, the rain did blow, The day we held our annual show ; But a doctor brave, That public slave, Blew harder than the wind, O ! The doctor, c'en without the horse, The prize was sure to take, of course ; No judge could stand That smile so bland However he had sinned, O ! The trial was o'er, the game was done, And Mac for once the prize had won ; The.crowd had gathered round, of course : Loud praises of himself and horse Into their ears he dinned, 0 ! Here is a metrical paraphrase of a contemporary's description of the training of the girls in a certain school : — According to one lady — (she was just a slight bit nervous, sirs). Who'd been for two decades (at least she said so) in the service, sirs, The masters very often dijjped their beats in " Eed Falernian," And girls devoured poetry of a nature most " Swin- , bur man." She'd seen a, master Euolid teach — in truth, in no great haste he was — ]?or he was putting his big arm around the pupil's waist, he was. The girls are "bold and turbulent," like ballet girls or actresses, And meet the boys on starry nights, and also at choir practices ; The pupil teachers, oh, they are so awfully vertiginous* (Puzzled for a rhyme). Like hawks, they're always trespassing around the poor doves' pigeon-' ons. ♦Vertiginous :^ Giddy. A certain Auckland musician had a rather sensational adventure the other evening. For some time past he has been in the habit of paying clandestine visits to a married woman in Hobsonstreet, ostensibly for the purpose of imparting lessons in quavers and demi-semi quavers. From circumstances which came to the knowledge of the husband, he was led to believe that the relations between his wife and the visitor were not of that purely platonic, professional nature which ought to exist between pupil and tutor, and he therefore kept his weather eye open. Hearing what lie took to -be a man's voice in the house one

night, he made, a sudden entry, only to , find his "mis'siis" engaged in the virtuous, doniestic ; task of darning stockings. Dismissing his suspicions for the moment, he was about to light his evening pipe, -when he heard a rustling in an 1 adjoining room, followed by the opening of a window, and he was -just in time to catch a glimpse of the musical man making tracks across the back -yard. He says, if he ever catches the destroyer of his domestic hapj,ines"s again poaching on his > preserves, there will be such music as will lick the Simonsen's choruses into fits. A rather amusing scene occurred the other day at a certain hotel at which there is a fair Hebe famed for 'her pugilistic prowess, which has earned for her the title of " The Belfast Chicken." On the day in question a swell of the lah-de-dah species sauntered carelessly to the bar, called for a glass of his favourite tipple and requested the priestess of Bacchus to " put it down to him." The damsel had, however, been too frequently a victim of misplaced confidence, and in a fit of exasperation she seized the man's hat, and threatened to hold it as security for payment of the sixpence. The fellow made a snatch at his chapeau, slightly scratching the girl's eye. To rush round the^ bar, and walk round him in a way that would have done credit to the redoubtable Jem Mace' was the work of a moment. Endeavouring to defend himself from a shower of wellaimed blows at his face, he received some severe punishment in the ribs. He cried peccavi, and a bystander paid the sixpence in order to' prevent murder. Thereupon the Amazon returned to the bar, and proceeded to deliver a lecture on the art of self-defence, warning the victim of her wrath that if he ever again tried the same dodge on her his good looks would be destroyed for ever. This episode ought to prove a salutary warning to persons who rely on the softness of the gentler sex to practice the P. and O. system. The statement that Mr. Parnell's' rents have been reduced by the Land Commission is incorrect. None of his tenants have applied to the Land Court, all of their rents being consiberably below the Government valuation. Mr. Henry Parnell, brother of the Irish leader, is the • gentleman whose estate has been proved to be highly rented. With reference to Mr. C. S. Parnell's tenantry, Mr Kedmond, M.P., tells the following anecdote 1 : The hon. member for New Ross formed one of a shooting party last August to one of the grouse mountains belonging to Mr. Parnell, in Wicklow. On a' portion of the mountain they found a flock of sheep. It is unnecessary to say that the presence of sheep on a grouse monntain during the breeding and shooting season is most injurious to the game, and Mr. Parnell was enraged . at finding them there. He walked down with his friends to a comfortable cot at the base of the hill, and said he would let them see him exercising some of the rights of a landlord. As the party approached the house the tenant came out bareheaded to welcome "the master." ".Whitty," said Mr. Parnell, " you are a hardened old scoundrel. — For the benefit of these gentlemen (turning to the shooting party) I will explain what I have done for you. Five years ago you were evicted from a neighbouring estate. I found yourself , your wife and children on the ditch side. I brought you here, built this house, and gave you this farm at a moderate rent, with permission to graze your cattle on the mountain, free of charge, during- the whole of the year, except the breeding and shooting season, and you promised •tcte to see that your sheep did not interfere with the game. From that day to this you have never paid me one farthing rent, and I now find that you are not honourable enough to keep your promise about the grazing," "Whitty looked very much ashamed, and begged the Irish leader's pardon. This is a specimen instance of Mr. Parnell's manner of treating his tenants. A year ago, Parnell called together the entire body of tenantry, and handed them clear receipts for all arrears of rent to that day. So that althoiigh every landlord in Ireland benfits to some extent by the Arrears Act, Mr. Parnell has not received one penny of the money voted by the State towards liquidating the debts of the tenantry of Ireland.