HOTCH! SCOTCH! POTCH!

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 13, 11 June 1920, Page 10

HOTCH! SCOTCH! POTCH!

(Contributed by "The Groper.") Far be't ira© rae that I aspii® t To blamo your legislation, Or say ye wisdom want or fire, To rule this mighty nation ! But, faitli ! I muckle doubt, my sire, Ye've trusted ministration To chaps who in a barn or byre, W'ad hetter filled their station. And now ye've gien auld Britain peace Her broken shins to plaster ; Your sair taxation does her fleece, Ti i 1 she has scarce a tester. As it was in the day of Burns so is it now. Fox, Pitt, and the other great ones got their rneed of banter and curses froin the subjects of the r.ealm. Lioyd George gets most of hi.s curses from Ireland, where a considerable body of disgruntled st-alwarts are perpetuaby "Agin the Government." The broken shins of Britain (Lreland's too) want rest. We in New Zealand don't want an Irish or any other like question. "Iona" is no fool, but has a penchant for the scrap heap of the past — the lumber room of things, so to speak. From thence he retails a que,er history — devoid of edification. We thereiore congratulate the "Southland Times" on the matter and manner of its rebuke and eorrect'ion of "Iona." Digger Hall-Jones, B.A., L.L.B., and the first local president of the R.S.A., is to be congratulated on the ownership of a real lice crooning little digger. "The Groper," offers the father digger the following injunction from the pen of the immortai Bobbie Ye'li catechise him eyery quirk An' shore him weel wi' hell ; An' gar him follow to the kirk — Ay when ye gang yoursel. A "two gallon" party : — But ye whom social pleasure charms, Wliose heart the tide of kindness warms Who hold your beingWm ihe terms "Each aid th,e other." Corne to my bowl, come to my arms, My friends! My brothers ! On a noted coxcomb - Light iay the earth on Willy's breast, His chicken heart so tender, But build a castle 011 his head, His skull will prop it under. . The cause of Methodism must have recedved an awful setback in this town./ Is it possible that Scott, Buiv and Presbyterianism are to blame ? Teviot Street church sold ! L,eet street, Don street, and ihe Northend property open for n,ego:tiation ! The truth is Invercargill churches have been empt-ied by blatant mediocrity preaching German-made theology which does not seem to "get there." There have been notabie exceptions in the gifted C. H. Olds, and one or two others. Speaking on preaching, "The Groper," not long since heard Burridge disCoursing on the episode of David's va-liants bringing their chief water from a well, after making "dog beef" of the intervening Philistines. The preaeher took full five minutes to tell how David spilied the water on the g round. The mighty Thomas Chahners preaching from the same text, said : "My friends, had I been David, I'd jnst a ta'en a richt guid willy waucht o't." Wi'ves only; — THE HEN-PECK^D HUSBAND. (Burns.) Cursed be the man, the poorest wretch in life, The crouehing vassal to the tyrant wife ! Who has no right but by her high permission ; Who has not sixpence, but in her possession ; Who must to her his dear friends' secrets tell ; Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell ; Were such the wife had fallen to my part, I'd break her spirit or I'd break her heart, I'd charm her with the magic of a switch ; I'd kiss her maids, and ' kick th© perverse Lady. **Lady" is near enough! The f riendship of Burns : — * For me I swear by sun an' moon, And eveTy star that winks aboon, Ye've cost me twenty pair o' shoon, Just gaun to see yon; And every ither pair that's done, Mair ta'en I'm wi' you.