TRAGIC TALE OF A KITCHEN FIREPLACE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2471, 12 May 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

TRAGIC TALE OF A KITCHEN FIREPLACE.

0 At a hostelry down South lately it was intended to give a banquet to celebrate the opening of a new hall, but after extensive preparations had been made an incident happened which marred the festivities. The "pub" was situated

close to the Chinese Camp, and as the residents of that balmy locality had been in tho habit of paying clandestine visits to the wood heap, the proprietor bored auL'iir holes in several of tho best logs and loaded tlieiu up with blasting powder, hoping that the next time the heathens were bent on felony they would have vividly impressed on their minds a beautiful moral lesson. A few weeks elapsed, but no more wood was taken, aud when the eventful morning came the cook set to work to prepare for tho banquet, and the fact that the loaded logs were in the heap seemed quite forgotten. The culinary artjst piled up the lire and threw on wood to keep it going ; and soon the roast beef and fat turkeys and geese were wriggling, and plum duff, and potatoes, wore dancing round in the boiling pots. More wood was thrown on to keep up the heat and everything appeared to be going splendidly when — Bang ! Bang ! ! Bang !!! and the remains of a scalded cook passed down the passage like a vision, bumped once or twice in the road, and fell in a gutter opposite. The chimney tottered and fell through the roof, three iron pots rushed upwards through the air, followed closely by a cloud of steam, smoke, dust, potatoes, ham, roast-beef and plum-duff. When the air cleared a melancholy spectacle presented itself. Festoons of boiled cabbage hung on every tree for a hundred yards around, four vagrant dogs lay slain in the back-yard, and a sundowner lay stretched on the road, Ins head caved in with a blow from the oven which lay beside him. The unfortunate cook came to in about half-au-hour. " It's just what that fortune-telling cove told me," he mumbled feebly when he got np, "ho said some day I'd be struck by lightning."