A SAD OCCURRENCE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2879, 25 December 1890, Page 4

A SAD OCCURRENCE.

THE BRISBANE WATER SUPPLY. Tina is tho »tory of a wedding which didn't come off, mid of two loving hearts that wore trodden underfoot by the hoof of calamity. The parties to tho transaction reside in Brisbane, a sultry city, with a defective watersupply which runs by fits and starts, with intervals between when the fit is over and the start hasn't begun. Consequently, when the Brisbane citizen wants a bath he simply gets out of his cloth.es, sits down under the tap, and waits. When he has waited till lie is dead-tired, and not a single drop of wator has come, he gets into his clothes again and goes away to spend a week at the seaside, leaving the tap turned on by mistake, and whenever he is gone the delusive fluid comes with a rush, and Hoods the room, and soaks through into the apartment below for six nights. Then it stops running just 45minutes before he gets back, and thero is no water again for a fortnight. It was this local peculiarity which broke up the two lovers already alluded to, and scattered their hopes like an eye struck by dynamite. The bridegroom—a newspaper man—was a stranger in the land, and on his wedding morning he roso early and climbed into the shower-bath. He turned the water on just cnongh to make himself reasonably damp, and then he turned it oil again, and smothered

himself from head to foot in soap. When he could hold no more soap he turned it on once more—or rather he tried to do so, but there was no water there. He got one eye open with difficulty and inspected tho pipes, but the soap got into it, and ho closed it hurriedly. In the ignorance ho fondly imagined that tho refreshing fluid would come back in a few seconds, so ho sat on the edge of the bath to wait. He kept on waiting. An hour passed slowly, and the soap had dried on him, and he grew wild and began to denounce the Corporation of Brisbane as a gathering of hogs, dogs and devils,

but no good results followed. .Tie also began to get cramped, so ho spent the next hour sitting on tho lloor, and using language which would have made his best girl's hair run cold and her blood stand on end, and then lie crawled back into his bedroom, kicking his clothes in

front of him, and tried vainly to get tho soap off with the hair hatbrush. Next he attempted to remove it with codlivcr oil, and when that scheme foil through also there wore no more available liquids left in the house except gum and ink. At this stage he lay down and held on to the lloor, else ho would have blown tho roof off with an explosion of sentiment, and lest he might do some damage ho hid himself under the bed and cursed inwardly. The mattresses and other fixings helper! to muffle exterior sounds, so he stayed under the. bed for two hours and a-half before it struck him that there was a dull sound'ofF rushing water somewhere, but when he flew back into the bathroom ho found that though the water had evidently been running for thirty minutes or so, it had just stopped again, and ho was in time to catch the last drop on the top of his head, and that was all. Human endurance gave out at this point, and he swore 28 or 2'.i times louder than ho had sworn before. Naturally enough the landlady came upstairs, and asked him through tho keyhole what wa.; the matter but, when he bade her clear out because he had nothing on excopt one drop of water on his head she retired in disorder, and get it clown to drink. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when the bride's brother came also with thunder in his eyes and a large stick in hi:; hand, lo demand why nobody had turned up at the altar, and when he tried tin; bed room door he found it locked. Then lie deniMiided jidinilUijct-. and in response there arose frnei wilhiu the lioaive, idiotic shriek or n, dry maniac covered with soup. The sufferer's reason had given vv.iy beneath tho strain, and he had emptied the gum and ink over himself, and then climbed up the chimney. He was dragged out with difficulty and removed to the local asylum where he has a showorliath every morning, but his case is generally regarded as hopeless. There is a settled gloom upon hi;; soul, and the spark of intelligence has fled for ever.—-Sydney Bulletin.