THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1912. BETTER LEFT UNSAID.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10717, 30 October 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1912. BETTER LEFT UNSAID.

"Things bettor left unsaid," according to a collector in the English Illustrated, are chiefly those that, like curses, come disagreeably home to the sayer. A politician, interrupted in. his speech by a hostile listener, was unwise in asking sarcastically, "who brayed there?" "No one,'/ came back the prompt.retort, "It was onlyan echo." And another much-heckled orator was unlucky in his expostulation with the crowd—"lt is no use my talking any more; every-time I open my month a silly fool speaks." A candidate more famous for his interest in sport than in his intellectual .qualities, was put to the test by a schoolmaster amongst his. audience, who sent up a question asking his opinion of the Decalogue. The puzzled candidate turned to a friend on the platform, who, either from eqxial ignorance, or as a joke, replied, "it is flogging in the Army." On which, with a mighty sense of rectitude, the speaker assured the inquirer, "I would if elected, certainly do awiay with the Decalogue at once!" Andrew Carnegie told a story of the self-made man visiting his nephew at school, and inquiring what were his studies. "Latin and Greek." said the boy, "and German and Algebra." "Dear me!" cried tho self-made man, "and what is the Algebra for turnips?" And Capital, a Calcutta weekly, recently had the good tale of the officer who charged his man with "Bigotry, your worship. He's got three wives." "Officer.'•' replied the newly-made magistrate, "What is the use of all this education, all these evening schools, all the technical classes an' what not? Please remember, in any future like case, that a man who has married three wives has not committed bigotry, but trigonometry." Another justice was rebuking a farmer for ill-treating a poor Half-witted farm hand. "You should remember," he said severely, "that idiots, after all,

aro men like you and me." Churches I supply some odd announcements,'such as that which stated, "On next Sunday the Rev So-and-so will preach, | after which the church will be closed for three weeks for repairs." And a good man who preached at a floral harvest-thanksgiving on "Flowers as a cure for worry," was really too prophetic when he said, "We arc told •that more people dio from worry than from anything else, a nd yet they still go on worrying!" The Chairman of an Agricultural Committee had no offensive intention when he observed, exhibitors figure in our lis;ts> of donkeys, of which a fair number of ''fine specimens are to be seen this year." But very careful ;, oh natural history points was the mistress of a log-hut in the wilds of Canada, where a travelling Bishop stopped to rest. "Aro there any Episcopalians about here?" he asked. And she hesitated. "Well, sir, I hardly know. The men did kill something in the barn, but whether it was one of them things or not I cannot say."