In Lighter Vein
(By 'Quip.') »•« Correspondence, newspaper cuttings, etc.. intended for this department should be addressed ' Quip,' N.Z. TABLET Office, Dunedin, and should reach this office on or before Monday morning. 1 There's nothing like a little judicious levity.' R. L. Stevenson.
Obituary. Mr. Dooley observes that ' greatness manes white whiskerß.' This accounts for all the fuss that has been made over the polar bear who died recently in the Sydney Zoo. He had white whiskers all over his countenance, and all over the back of his head, and all over his chest, and all down his back right to the end of the little leather tag with which all self-respecting bears conclude. It is Btrange that we never heard of this bewhiskered old gent before he passed in his checks. But as the philosopher of Arohey Road remarks in another place ' Th' principal ingreejent iv fame is bein' dead.' It was so, anyway, in the case of the gentleman who has earned a reputation for nodding. ( Seven cities warr'd for Homer being dead, Who living had no roofe to shroud his head.'
The poor bear died of a cold. The doctor in attendance couldn't tell at first whether it was a cold or only the plague, there is such a similarity between the two complaints. Fancy a cold killing a Polar bear who, up in the Arctic, where his parents earn an honest living by knocking explorers on the head, used to spend his nights perspiring on the shady side of an iceberg. Somebody must have left the gate of the Zoo open and thereby created a draught. Anyway, he has gone where all good bears go to. The following is the death notice, printed for private circulation only : In the last week of April, 1902, at his residence, Cage No. 27, The Zoo, Sydney, Pole R. Bear, after a brief but fatal illness ; aged 17 or 71 years. Private interment. Flowers respectfully declined. North Pole papers pleaße copy.
Dread Death has raised his bony thumb And beckoned Pole R. Bear To follow him, where quadrupeds Are freed for aye from care. And at 10.15 on Monday morn, As the winds soughed through the pines, They took his fur to make a mat, Then threw him to tho lionß. Not lost, but gone inside.'
A Matter of Dress. We are continually hearing of the advance 'made by Jappy Japan in Western civilisation. But the Chinese are beating the Japs. The Emperor of China walked in a procession to Pekin Bhabbily dressed. Nobody ever heard of the Mikado going around' with his pyjamas baggy at the knees, or his tall hat looking as if someone had mistaken it for a Government section, and had triad to comply with the residence clause. And that is where the Chinese Emperor gets in .first. He walked in that procession with his tie sticking out under one ear, his laces undone, his kimono all unbuttoned up the back, and his catamaran and hi 3 Hoang-ho all out of plumb, looking remarkably like a man who had squeezed through the sky -light of a fan-tan shop when some police had called to ask the way to the Post Office. He was nearly as badly dressed as a European nobleman. In England the Royal Family dress respectably ; but, if we are to believe the personal paragraphs in the newspapers, outside the Royal Family, there isn't a nobleman in England who hasn't at some time or another been taken for a tramp. In England, if you see a man with his clothes fitting him all over and touching him nowhere, and looking as if they had been thrown on to him with a hay-fork by a man with the palsy, you can stake your last shilling that he is one of the upper crust, or a colonial Premier, or an American millionaire, suffering an attack of general nobiHty.
Some Cures. Lest anyone should be overtaken by the same sad fate as the Sydney polar bear I subjoin a couple of cold cures, culled from the Philanthropic column of the Portland ' Oregonian.' Mark Twain tells how he tried a number of recipes without obtaining relief. I have never heard a complaint from anyone who tried either or both of these cures. For a cold in the head : Take a voyage to China on an ocean greyhound, or, if your means are limited, go in a private yacht. We are not at liberty to print the names of manufacturers of private yachts, but send one dollar to pay postage and we will put you next to three or four. For a cold in the chest : A cold in the chest is a pretty serious affair, but it yields readily to skilful treatment. Get a dentist to lend you a pair of forceps, reach down your throat until the cold can be firmly gripped and extract it with a short, sharp jerk. Once you have it out set the bulldog on it. or it is likely to attack you again.
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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 19, 8 May 1902, Page 18
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840In Lighter Vein New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 19, 8 May 1902, Page 18
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