Snooker and Cannon were drinking long beers
West Australian Sunday Times (Perth), Sunday 2 July 1899
“O! Paradise!”
That was a terribly painful tragedy that occurred at the Miners’ Arms Hotel in Wellington street, Perth, the other day. Of course, you have read how a young man named Temple, who had lately been employed in the London and Westminster Bank, in the world’s metropolis, came to this next world’s metropolis, and, finding nothing or nobody here to employ bis talents, himself short of money, friends and food, he decided upon taking a short cut to Kingdom Come, and put a bullet through his head. Nobody appears to have heard the shot, and the tragedy was not discovered until drip, drip, drip! the life fluid made its way through the ceiling to the billiard room below-
‘Twas a terrible day, and the heavens shed tears,
And Snooker and Cannon were drinking long beers;
Without, there was lightning, and thunder, and rain,
And Wellington-street was a great open drain.
Said Snooker to Cannon, “I’ll give you a game;”
Said Cannon to Snooker, “I’m after the same.”
And the clicking of ivories knocking about
Was uninterrupted, except by a “shout.”
Said Snooker to Cannon, “By thunder, that’s good,
I’ve potted the red from where the white stood
Said Cannon to Snooker, “By Jingo, you’ve not,
For there is the red ball still on the spot.”
“Well, I never!” said Snooker, “I’ll swear I am right,
For Fm not color blind and I’m not blind tight!”
Then they went to the pocket-in amazement they stood,
For the white ball was red with a human’s red blood!
The Agent-General’s report has just been presented to Parliament, and we learn from it that every facility is being afforded the English people of acquiring information on the advantages of emigration to Western Australia. In fact, our colony is depictured as being little short of a paradise. Hum!