The other day a young man approached one of the machines and inserted his penny. He was so delighted to receive two penny stamps in return that he threw discretion to the winds and plunged again, hoping to receive a similar dividend.
When, as might have been expected, the second penny brought no return, his disappointment at having got no more than he paid for was very marked.
Quite another type of person, who had surely been brought up to high ideals of honesty, had a similar success with his penny, but he immediately took the extra stamp in to the office and returned it over the counter.
• Nowadays there are only two classes of ''sports'' that count (states the Wellington Post). One is the man who volunteers, and the other is he who must remain at home but pays out in hard cash to help the Empire.
In Stratford recently these specimens met at a centre of conviviality, and in the course of conversation one said he had been rejected as a member of the New Zealand forces for a trivial physical defect, which he had suffered in the South African campaign, but that he knew he would be accepted for a certain mounted regiment in the Old Country, and he continued: ''If I have to work my passage, I am going Home.''
Said the other ''sport'': ''If you can prove what you say is correct, I will pay your passage for you!'' promptly the man put his hand in his pocket and produced a bundle of papers, which on being perused were found to bear out his statements in every particular.
Then the second ''sport'' immediately turned to a local auctioneer, saying: ''Give our friend a cheque in the morning; I will make it right!'' Two other facts are also worth mentioning.
It was not the first handsome donation which one had given to the war fund, while the other, the new recruit, proved to the assembled company that he was born with a fighting spirit, being a nephew of a major in the British army.
• At the Supreme Court in Timaru on Wednesday, when a case of alleged sheep stealing was being heard, his Honor Mr Justice Sim showed himself well versed in the mysteries of sheepowners' lore, even going so far on one occasion (says the Herald) as to correct experts in the subject.
The occasion referred to was when two experts told the court that the terms ''hogget'' and ''two tooth'' were synonymous.
His Honor said that was incorrect: a hogget was a young sheep which was developing into a two tooth, and the latter was not a hogget, so it was only confusing matters to say that the terms ''hogget'' and ''two tooth'' were interchangeable.
The clear manner in which the judge had the intricacies of the evidence concerning ages, sexes, dry and wet ewes, woolly sheep and sheep out of the wool, sheep brands, ear marks, etc. set before the jury, must have been of considerable assistance to the latter in enabling them to follow the case intelligently.
• A hermit sheep was shot last week on Mr Were's Cecil Peak Station, opposite Queenstown. The animal was a three quarterbred four year old ram, its fleece being fully 18in long, and the tail (which was taken as a trophy of the chase) a yard in extent.
- ODT, 30.3.1915.
