A SAD TALE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 295, 25 September 1873, Page 7

A SAD TALE.

A very sad tale, but one in which a useful moral lies if properly applied, comes to us from the late Italian opera reason. At the door of a well known house, in a fashionable quarter of the city, there stood a gentleman and three ladies clad in evening costume, and bound for the opera. The carriage had to wait while a slight discussion took place. The matron of the party is insisting that the fair young girl, her charge, must have a wrap to shield her from the night air when she leaves the warm house. The young lady remonstrates, she does not wish to keep them waiting ; she does not wish to go to the cloak room ; she has nothing else with her. The matron is determined, however ; she has left a wrap out expressly for her on the foot of her bed, and the young lady friend can avoid the cloak room by carrying it under her opera shawl. The girl obeys, goes up stairs in the dark and gets the wrap, brings it down under her shawl, enters the carriage with the light step of youth, and is whirled away with her friends to hear Moses sing down the Egyptian magicians, and see him lead his countrymen across the present route o& the P. and O. Company's boat. According to directions, the wrap was thrown over the back of her seat and forgotten. Forgotten for a short three hours, but to be remembered for a lifetime by her and her companions! Why did not the too, too solid floor of the dress circle melt, so as to drop her and her confusion into the yawning gulf beneath ? The opera is over, the ladies rise, and the gentleman spring to assist them} with their cloaks, when horror ! anguish ! destruction ! he holds up a pair of unmentionable wraps, that ladies are not in the habit of wearing with their evening dresses. The despair of that party on their sad return home it boots not to tell. The owner of the " wraps " was sitting up waiting for his wife and friends. They told him the terrible tale, with voices broken with emotion, and hysterical gasps that almost resembled laughter, when, to their renewed astonishment, the master of the house jumped up, and, with the deepest concern, cried, " What ! Mine ? Goodness gracious, there was £20 in the right pocket ! " All is well that ends well. The wrap was searched, the money found, and my moral is that young ladies should be very careful^ how they go in the dark for any article to a gentleman's bedroom. — Australian paper.

A contributor to one of the Christchurch papers prfoers the following advice to Mr Duncan, who is about to Sail for England, where he is to act as immigration agent for^* Canterbury : — " Tell intending immigrants we are all healthy and wealthy and wise here, Mr. D. Tell them we can get 7 per cent for our money when we have got it, and pay 60 per cent, when we have not, as easy as shelling peas, but don't tell them that crut here ' tbe rank is but the guinea stamp,' because we think as much of rank and guineas too, especially the latter, as they do at home. Besides the British agriculturist could never be led to believe that the man who has twopence halfpenny is not more thought of than the man who has two-pence. ' Love your neighbor as *yonrself, bnfc love his money better * was the first clause of the Magna Charta, only old John struck it ont as quite unnecessary. To worship ready money was an hereditary principle of the Anglo -Saxon race, and we hang on to it even unto this day. We don't think much of blue blood or talent, hut we do love tin, and if I kfiow anything of Anglo-Saxoas, we always will/* - ~