Ways of Living.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 426, 14 July 1904, Page 7

Ways of Living.

IN THE WORKHOUSE INFIRMARY. JKN one of the smallest provincial workelp houses (writes a correspondent of gK the 'Birmingham Post'), a feeble old man, assisted by another pauper, was making his way with tottering steps from the 'body of the house' to a ward in the infirmary. The reception he met with from the pauper wardsman in charge was anything but inviting :—• ' Why couldn't you wait till after supper before coming up V ' Doctor said as how I was to come at oace.' ' Well, take off your things and get into bed } you'll never get up any more, that's a sura thing.' * That's what doctor said: 'Go to bed,' says he, ' and have a rest.' But doctor,' I says, ' I be thinking my work's done, and 'tis the long rest that's a coming; eighty five and never give up afore; Ibe ready, for sure, but I warrant that some on 'em will miss me when they be sawiag up the wood.' 'Hold your bother and get off your clothes.'

•I won't bother'ee for long; the Master's coming for me soon, and I be ready to go with 'un—caa I have mj weekit under my pillow ?' * No, you can't—what do you want with your waistcoat under your pillow V ' There's a bit of ibacca in it.' «Put the 'bacca on the chair; you can't keep your clothes, you'll never want them .no more • off with your stockings.' ' Now, do 'ee let me have on my stockings ; they be olane on to-day and won't do no harm. I do get the cramp so in the night if 1 don't keep my stockings on.' 1 ' In yon get. I've got something else

to do besides bothering about with you.' 'I won't be a bother to 'es for long. 0 Lord I make haste, make haste, and take me to >«e.' Every word of tbis is true, and (says the correspondent who set it) if such things can be done with a guardian sitting in the ward, how do the old folks fare with pauper wardsmen when there is no one aboutP LAW FOR THE LAZY. The «Local Government Journal' :-* Is laziness a disease? Ib it increasing P Is there a remedy P Superintendents of casual wards will answer each of these questions in the affirmative. Laziness is the disease, they Bay, which produces 90 par cent of the great army of tramps—an army almost big enough to garrison India. It is a disease which is vastly on the increase if the number of ne'er-do-wells be any criterion. The remedy is, the same authorities say, forced labour in penal colonies. . . . It is too readily assumed by the general public that a man 'on the road' must necessarily be looking for work. This is the last thing ninetynine out of every hundred think of, much less do. The professional tramp knowß hisJbusiness, which is to live upon those who work. That he does well. He has been disouesed so frequently, and his vices have been so often paraded in the newspapers, that he has become a sort of celebrity—which brings him sympathy and money. Twenty-one years' experience of the working of an Act designed to_ cure him of his roving life points to failure everywhhere. . . . The crying need is a law for the cure ot laziness, a law which shall give power to the authorities to detain the bully who lives upon the, earnings of the weaker box; the loafer who lives in public-houses or upon the kerbstone outside; the tramp who freq-uents the same casual wards; the able-bodied pauper who will not work; the unemployable who have never learned to work; and the budding gaolbird who has been nurtured upon truancy. That truancy is the outcome of laziness and the forerunner of crime is an established fact; that want of Belf-restraint, which is a virtue untaught at school, contributes very largely to the increasing tendency towards laziness is admitted. And when the growth of truancy, the decline of moral teaching, and the shirking of parental responsibility are taken into consideration, we can hardly wonder that the growth of the army of laziness keeps paco.' _. IN A GROCER'S SHOP. Mr Blower had had a difference with the local grocer, and he had opsnly vowed never to patronise the emporium again. Consequently, the merchant in question was agreeably surprised when one afternoon his late 'customer entered, and ordered half a stone o! sugar, with complete nonchalance. Prudence would have dictated silence; but human nature is weak, and as he tied the string the grocer could not resist saying, ' I thought you declared you would never darken my door again, Mr. Blower.' ' That is true, and I should not have done so,' was the retort, 'but I've jUBt received a fine lot of csrnation cuttings, and I had no sand for potting them.' THE GUTTER-HERCHANr TAIKS. A hoary individual in London who makes a living by selling penny ' Every time you squeeze 'em they tqueaze,' mourns the loss of-the men who once upon a time earned a decent living by selling pirated copies of copyright music in the streets. 'Nothing/ says he, 'can fill their places—not tiddlers, or Lord Kitcheners, nor monkeys on sticks, nor cock-a-doodle-doos. An' specially ole Brick- ; dust. Pore ole Brickdust; Face like a bloomin' sunset, 'e 'ad. And as for 'is langwidge—No, we shan't ever look upon his like again. 'E's been to 'Atton Garding,' and gome and 'ired a horgan. Fancy poor ole Brickdust as a horgasist! But'e sez to me, "e sez, 'Bill, I can't leave the perfeshion. It was music as I wos bred and born to, and it's music I'll go hois wiv. If- I can't sell no more bloomin' «'Oly Citieß,' I'll play 'em. I will just. And so'e's gome.'