A FUNNY PARTY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 185, 14 June 1879, Page 2

A FUNNY PARTY.

q> (From the London World.) Pipes and grog at Mr Frank Bucklajid'a last Saturday meant much more Bame entertainment anywhere else. -'tAn "at home" in Albany-street is alwaya amusing, and this was, if anything, above tho usual mark. The interior was dressed up and decorated for the occasion. All the heads and horns of animals, extant or extinct, were dusted and furbished up; the fragrance of the casting room, with its garlands of fish, entrails, bottles of shrimps, , snakes, and whitebait upon the shelvfca, was toned down hut not entirely destroyed. The company -was of the most heterogenous description. Thero wfa Sir Joseph Fayrer. learned in the thanatopliidia, or poisonous snakes of India;/ Sir Samuel Baker, equally fluent upon Egyptian reptiles; African explorers, piscator[ ial painters, and members innumerable of tho Linnajan Society, and ofvtlw Zo6. Genial and good-natured Mr/Jamracli/ with a diamond brooch in his/hirt-froht, and a pleasant smile on his ™h-colorcd face, dilated in glowiug toms upon; his Peruvian mummy—that o/fi young . girl who fell, or was malicioyly pushed, eomo thousand years ago, jn(p'a nitre pit, arid who now.resembles'u -few sticks of 'very iry tobacco; - JlrPeachy produced a'plas■ter cast-of-the fa'ce/of Henry 7H;£the? , same' wliich was exhibited with that Kuigs ■ effigy wlion'.lying In state noarly.four hirn-

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" 1 . 1 tired years ago. To add' to tlio general liveliness of the evening, the monkey-box was drawn near the fire, andi its t\vo : rather'siekly little occupants introduced tt> the company. A one's logs, up and down the'stars,' in- perfect amity, with n]en; whil?' a white rat—- . friendly creature—witlr ■ perfect sympa-' : tliiea for tlio human rate, sported itself . upon the silken roboa of the .Chinese Ambassador,' whoso dark but but nut unkind faco was somewhat perturbed at the pollution. Ho recovered himself, however, , when tlie green oysters, specially, raised by one of Mr BncklaiidV friends j made their tippimmco' and his appreciation*« fully enußed by everyone else who tasted tßeni. The host ::nd hostess busied themselves to..keep the fun going; and when Frank was tired Yif talking, his excellent and indefatigable assistant, Mr p Carlo, took up his parable,- and discoursed 1 on fish, fresh or dead, or exhibited the toy automaton thimble rigger, a legacy of Robert Houdin's. All alike, foreigners, .doctors, lawyers, soldiers, sailors-most {thoroughly enjoyed tlniir evening,