LOCAL AND GENERAL

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume V, Issue 640, 30 July 1891, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Yesterday merning William Williams, was charged at the Police Court with allow, ing a chimney to catch fire. He was fined ss, costs 7s, in default 24 hours’ imprison meat.

Mr A. McMillan, who has lately been running ths well known Gisborne hurdle racer Bit of Blue, in Auckland, concluded the purchase ot that boras on Tuesday last. The price paid for him is said to ba £l5O. One of the favorite and most fashionable dances in Sydney just now is the " Kitchen Lancers,” it being greatly preferred to the " Barn Dance,” although many votaries at the shrine of Terpsichore still adhere to the latter as being the more " nifty ’’ of the twain.

The representative football team are re guested to attend practice at 430 this afternoon on the ground. As it is hoped that the team will make an effort this year to uphold the football honors of the district, it is important that there should be a good muster for practice, and that the players selected should not have it said against them that they had thrown the match away through neglect of preparation. An advertisement elsewhere gives notification of the matches next Saturday.

At the R.M. Court yesterday J. Hart was charged on the information of Peter Sorry with abusive language. Mr Chrisp appeared for informant, and Mr Jones for defendant. When the case was called on the parties had come to an arrangement, which, with the Magistrate's consent, was given effect to. The defendant withdrew his plea of not guilty, and a nominal fine of one shilling was entered up, with half the costs which would have been allowable, amounting to £1 7s 7d.

A funny story is being told abouT the Queen. A band was playing before her Majesty, and the Queen, who is nothing if not curious, being pleased with a particular air, demanded the name of it. Borne one went and inquired, but failed to bring back the information; so her Majesty sent again to ascertain, and then it transpired that the melody was entitled '* Come where the booze is cheapest I” And how (said one officer to another) could one tell her Majesty that ?

Mr Lohr played off a joke on some New Zealand Pressman lately. When they went to congratulate him on the fact that a little Lohr had been added to the world's population, he would pull a photo out of his pocket, showing a pair of twine, and allowed them to beadmired—he had got hold of the photo in the course ot his travels, Mr Toole has worked a somewhat similar joke on the Pall Mall Gazette. On June 11 there appeared in that Journal a prominent engraving entitled “ Mr Toole taking his bath among the Maoris.” It represents the popular English comedian in a hot pool at Rotorua, surrounded by Maori men and women. As a matter of tact, the Pall Mall Budget has been properly gulled over that picture, Mr Toole had bought a photo and had a new negative taken with his own head and shoulders (from another photo) inserted. The joke is that anyone who knows anything about photography can see by looking carefully at the engraving where the Maori’s bead has been taken out and that of Toole inserted,

A curious example of what anonymity may lead to appears in a late number of the Reporters* Magazine. A writer is fierce in his denunciation of some suggested improvements in phonographic characters, and says:—" Some one must have been having a lark with you, or, which is more likely, you have been had by one of those funny people always on the look out for opportunities for playing off practical jokes, How he must have grinned from ear to ear when his precious proposal saw the light in your columns, in all its beauty'P. Allow mo—and do not forget that lam a regular subscriber and supporter of your magazine—to ask if there were any dearth of interesting matter that you were allowed to take up your valuable space with the rubbish referred to P" The editor quietly replies that the "funny” unknown writer was Mr T. A. Reed, the leading phonographer in the world (excepting Pitman himself), t-nd that the " rubbish ” had been tested in it; his daily practice, The editor also stated that he would always fee glad to be " had ” by Mr Reed's practical suggestions.

A gentleman narrowly escaped being drowned by a salmon in Scotland, He -hooked a large fish, and entered the water to free the line, which had caught in a boulder, when the salmon swam round and round and round the would-be captor, fixing the line firmly round both his legs. But for the prompt assistance of a gillie, the gentleman might haye been dtownsfl.

Union Literary Society—This (Thursday) evening at 8, "Impromptu Bpeakiug;" Full attendance requested. —Advh