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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 6
[miscellaneous paragraphs]
A $5000 prize is offered for the best poem to be said or sung at the opening of the World's Fair at Chicago.
The Friend of Labor.
How doth the provident M.P.
Improve each shining hour,
And in the « Labor Question » see
Hopes of retaining power!
How skilfully he shapes his « sell, »
How neatly spreads his « fakes » !
On Labor's ears they sound quite well,
The promises he makes.
Skilled Labor, Labor without skill,
He would have busy too,
Nay, he would find some Labor still
For idle « hands » to do.
Yet Labor, whatsoe'er he say,
To trust him be not fast;
Or you'll discover some fine day
He'll diddle you at last!
The Dunedin correspondent of a country paper tells of a female contributor to a city weekly, whose stories had a little too much « local color, » though otherwise poor enough. « Then came what was evidently intended to be a more ambitious sketch, as it was ' to be continued.' The local coloring was again prominent and something more. The description of the heroine, and her choice of a calling clearly pointed in one direction and in that only, because as it happens only two ladies follow that calling in Dunedin. As if that were not sufficient, the real name of the young lady was almost identical with part of the fictitious name. The mother was also described and characterized in anything but flattering terms. Gossips' tongues were at once set wagging at finding the affairs of the heart of a young lady, known personally, by sight, or by name to almost every one, discussed openly in the press by a pretended friend who knew or professed to know all about them. Naturally enough the affair reached the ears of the father of the young lady, and the second instalment of the story has not made its appearance. Surprise is expressed at the conduct of the writer, especially in regard to the terms used about the mother, who is said to have acted the part of a friend to the authoress. The writer is believed to see no harm even now in what she did, notwithstanding that she has set the town discussing the private affairs of her victim, who is in rather delicate health. » This particular kind of meanness is, we think, more common among female writers than among males. An even more glaring case is that of a New Zealand novel, much puffed in certain quarters, which is really a cruel libel on certain persons unfortunate enough to be connected with a notorious criminal, and whose identity is evident to anyone familiar with the details of a certain trial.
« From pure love of etymology and in the interests of the same, » Professor Skeat lately wrote to Isaac Pitman, I would like to see our present spelling utterly smashed. »
M. Auguste Durand, a professor in a lyeée, (says the Echo), is ambitious of introducing a new style of orthography into France. His ideas have been borrowed largely from Mr Pitman. Here is a sample of the new orthography. It is the well-known chorus of the « Marseillaise, » « Au.r armes, citoyens! »—
O'z-arni(e) sitüoje'
Formé' vo batajlo
Marso', marso', k'u sa k-épur
Abrov(e) no silo.
Mr Christie Murray, writing in the Contemporary Review, says:— « It is unfortunate that Australians see the worst types of Englishmen. English parents give their incorrigibles a 'last chance,' make them a present of £100, and send them off to Australia; English cockneys travel in the colonies, offensively attempt to patronise their hosts, and gratuitously flaunt the assumption that colonists are necessarily inferior to homebred people. » He goes on to illustrate his point. « 'Met a little girl th'other day,' says the eye-glassed idiot, beaming fatuously round the table. 'Little colonial girl, don't you know. She'd read George Eliot. Never was more surprised in my life.' And this to a company of Australian ladies and gentlemen born and bred. » When the writer went to the Bluff to touch « the southernmost gas-lamp in the world, » he saw a Scot leaning up against that lamp-post in a state of abject drunkenness. « 'Et's a nice lettle coal'ny,' said the man, 'but it wants inergy, it wants enterprise, and it wants (hie) sobriety.' »