BRIEF MENTION

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 228, 24 January 1885, Page 12

BRIEF MENTION

Roped in— the man who is hung. A wax-end — the last of the candle. Woman's sphere- -an applo dumpling. A floury composition — a bread pudding. A very hard ease, indeed — the coaeanufs. A new car-pct — the girl you may ma Hi on the train. Who has bought the privileges of the Booth for the coming show ? It is said that the Band of Hope boys at Ellorslio have gone into training for the coming picnic, and arc doing Banting. Look out for an elephantine! gorge ! We arc glad to see that the Auckland Timber Company has adopted our suggestion Toy sending a cheque for £10 IDs to the Naval Artillery. " But what about the police ? A sanguine speculator who had invested £1 in an Auckland consultation and drew a horse, was rather disgusted when his share of the dividend only amounted to fourteen shillings. Could not the Premier have selected a more opportune time than Christinas Eve for the delivery of a lecture at the Ihinedin Lyceum, which was pregnant "with many things calculated to shock the sensitiveness of Christians. The Fire Pcs! heads a long rigmarole with "Why does Mr Booth come here!'" We can ans.vcr this in two shakes of ;i b.mb's tail. lie comes to rake in as much of the one thing needful as he can collar, and to have a good time. After the paragraph that appeared in a rabid contemporary last Saturday, hotclkeepcrs will do woll to bear in mind that they cannot have a private conversation with their wives on business matters without being overheard by eavesdroppers and spies. Where arc the slop-buckets? Some festive cuss up Muddy Creek wny lias sent xis a sketch about two foot square of a picnic at that i>lacc, with a polite request to put it into this week's Obseuvkp. as an illustration. The drawing is not in a vory high style of art. It presents the appearance of a wrecked spider's web. Or the scone of the late fire at the Auckland Timber Company's yards. Brother Braine is very fond of the phrase "fixed up." Ho constantly declares ibis ability to ''fix up" the publicans, sinners. Catholics, secular religionists, and everything in general. Wo saw a man once who had "fixed up" a good many things in his time, especially burglaries, bat at last he got iixed up himself. A hangman got the bulge on him. Though some of the J.P.s down South are weak-kneed, there are some magistrates in Tasmania who will not truckle to fanatical humbugs and clownish burlesque on Christianity. At Latrobe the other clay a captain and four privates and three lasses ■of the Salvation Army, who created a nui - an co on Saturday night in front of business premises, were fined £1 a head. The captain and a companion " took it out " on skilly. Dr Payne, of the Thames, took a header at the booms, Kauaeranga, the other day, and forgot that his head wusn't a piledriver. The stream having fallen during the dry weather, his head struck the boulders at the bottom, and he suffered much Payne from a nasty scalp wound. If this had been the editor of one of our weekly contemporaries or a temperance lecturer, or a local preacher, the boulders would have suffered. It's a disadvantage sometimes to have a soft head. There was a big slogging match in a local hotel on Tuesday night between a city official and a restaurant-keeper. A late publican went to separate them, but was given the ''flying-mare fall by a wellknown boniface and erstwhile West Coast wrestler, Avho butted him in the " stum j ex, 1 ' and placed him /«»?>• dc cnmbal. Then a well-known plumber got mixed up with the wrestling publican, and got sat down on a chair like a pile-driver, the chair going like a squashed tomato. Altogether it was great fun. A party by the name of Jones, at the Thames, seeing in a shop Avindow some doggerel which reflected on his family, has taken proceedings to bind over the shopkeeper, A. Melrose. to keep the peace. In such cases we always keep the piece ourselves, and pitch it into the waste paper basket, but if wo were to take legal proceedings against every idiot who Avrites doggerel calculated to incite us to murder, avc should want a whole court to ourselves, and haA r e no time for anything else. We have to acknowledge the receipt, from the author, Mr Edward Skelton Garton, of a copy of his "Lays of Northern Zealand," a. volume of original poems, Avhich lie dedicates to his mother. The book reached us too late for review in this issue of the Observer, but from a cursory glance at its contents (the author has omitted to furnish an index), Aye think they possess sufficient '^ merit to deserve a review in our next. We are glad to see that a numerous band of sweet singers is coining to the front in this land of picturesque scenery, brilliant and luxuriant vegetation, and blight skies, which is destined to become the home of a long line of poets.

The Baptists had a feast of reason and flow of soul, which continued for two evenings in the Choral Hall last week, and the offerings of the faithful towards the now Tabernacle flowed in freely. The \ choir sang themselves hoarse, while the shining lights of the congregation Avet their Avhistles behind the scenes with ginger ale and a dash, but not a drop of the refreshing bovera.g(! found its Avay down the throats of i the singers. Some of the old stagers vow j that on future occasions they Avill take care I to provide themselves with brandy flasks. j ! A gigantic porter named Tom O'Conucll. Avith a ferocious Hibernian expression of countenance, and a mouth which Avould be handy for concealing- stolon property ov ruining a hash-house, waltzed serenely into the editorial sanctum the other day. Avearinga. posterior appendage which at first sight we mistook for v. patent stove-pipe, a roof ventilator, a section of a steamer's funnel, or a. chunk out of the tail of mi alligator. On closei- inspection, howevei-, it proved to be a lady's dress-improver which the festive cuss had picked up in Queen-street, and which all the cheery-pickers on the promenade were too honest to claim. We should fancy the thing Avould come in handy as a beerstrainer, a horse's nose-bag, a- collapsable canoe, or a Salvation Army majors hat. "We wanted Tom to donate it to our museum of curiosities, but he wasn't on. lie says, with a pair of wheels, it will como in handy as a truck. Mr W. K. Wills, of Otahuhu. who has contributed so many excellent poems to the Oim:i:vi:i:. and who published a small volume of poems some years ago. lias now in the press a collection of more mature production.-, of his ready and A'ers.vtile pen entitled. --A Bunch of Wild L'ansics." We have been kindly permitted to peruke some of these poems in the proof, and can pronounce them equal to any original efforts of the muses ever produced in New Zealand. Mv Wills, though modest withal, is gifted with the genuine enthusiasm of tiie children of the lyre, and we shall be much mistaken if he does not achieve not only a colonial, but a world-wide reputation as a poet. His ■' Hunch of "Wild Tansies" will contain upwards of two hundred pages, and will be on sale at all booksellers at ."is per copy. ,\ special edition, beautifully bound in embossed covers, with gilt edges, and a portrait of the author, will be published for subscribers at 7s 'id per copy, Mr Wills has our best wishes for his success. For unctuous hypocrisy and assuming virtues which it does not possess, commend us to the Jlmi/i/. Keferring to the ease of Mr Yates of the II '<>rl<l the "other day, that paper remarked : — ■" However, if his martyrdom has the effect of purging society of some of its most objectionable features, it Avill not be without its compensating good." This must have been Avritton by the local preacher who is paid to watch OA'er the spiritual Avelfare of the staff, and offers up a prayer Avhencver any member of it raps out an oath at the printers" devils. Yet it avus the Jh ntl'l Avhieh last Saturday 2>rinted a filthy paragraph on the Swallow bestiality case, and travestied a text of Scripture iii order to suggest castration as a cure for this class of crimes. Physician, cure thyself.

At the Baptist conversazione the other evening, this nigger said : - L'ello'-bredrin, obsiirvo what I hold : Tn my left hand T hold long life an' 'appiness : in right sudden doth."' Our artist, however, has reversed the order of things. This is too bad. We will be revenged, and next week srivo him an Irishman's rise. Wo have received, from Mr IS". Lennox, bookseller and stationer, of Queon-streefc, a "History of the Decline aid Fall of the British Empire/ by Edward A. Gibbon, M.A.F.E.S.L., which purports to be published in Auckland, A.D. 2.SS-1. The pamphlet is a skit on the tendency of the political and social problems of the day. It will receive notice in a future issue. Wo have also received the Christmar, number of Longman's Magazine, which is very beautifully illustrated, and contains original stories by Bret Harte, Wilkio Collins, Walter Besant. and other popular authors. " The British Working Man. by one who docs not believe in him," which contains a large collection of comic sketches by J. P. Sullivan, reprinted from the pages of Fun. Cassell's Illustrated Almanac for 1885, has a very artistic title-page, several fine full-page illustrations, and a complete chronicle of events of the past year. These and a great variety of others .cheap publications and annuals are on sale at/the establishment of Mr jST. G . Lennox at a trifling advance on the English wholesale prices.