The Cable-rigger.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 16, 17 April 1902, Page 18

The Cable-rigger.

We are an ungrateful people in these parts if we do not erect an equestrian statue in ice-cream to the inspired idiot that controls the European end of the cables. Only that my hair is not my own, I would willingly sell him a lock of it as a sincere token of my humble esteem. Imagine the kindness of heart which promp&d him to flash along the ocean-bed the news that the Kaiser's yacnt was christened with Moet and Chandon's champagne and not with Bheingold. Up to the time the glad tidings came, the Australasian

thought that the ceremony had been performed with a sixpenny bottle of cough-mixture, and as a oonsequenoe, the harvest began to fail, the price of wool began to fall, and all thebanke were on the point of closing their doo^3. And it was reported that King Bungaleeboo, who owns a half interest in a one-horse archipelago, sou-east of White Island, was so disgusted with the Kaiser for permitting such a thing that he abdicated, sold the barrel he used to inhabit, and went and lived under the trees like one of his subjects. It was a great relief when thai kind-hearted ninny of a cable-rigger seni us the facts of the case. The Australasian public no longer lies awake o' nights, but takes its usual allowance of ' tired nature's sweet restorer' — when the baby lets it.