THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 51, 12 January 1877, Page 3

THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

*' Wherever I went, went my poor dog ." " Soaring rhymes by Sandy Grimes." I do not like innovations. I strongly object to bungling tyros in trade, when we haYe. practically competent old identities. Sorrowfully I pen these.few remarks, which are caused by reading in your journal that the Borough Council of. Akaroa have paid the dulcet voiced " Ward, five shillings for burying two dead animals" Surely they "would not pay anyone for burying live ones, then why the word dead ?—And further that R. Rae is remunerated for " burying a dead dog.",, I will not dwell upon the wilful waste of. provender, knowing full well that'tip top banquetings ceased about the middle of December last, but I want to kjiow what is Councillor Cullen thinking, about ? If his exalted position will not allow him to still carry on the undertaking business, surely he might remember that there are still three undertakers in the borough, whose names ominously commences with the letter D, Even in small matters, stick up for your •craft councillor. ''Think naught a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountain, momentsmake the year." As a rule sundowners are illiterate. I am no exception to that rule. „ I am as regards the meaning and purport of some words, used in our common vernacular, " In the lowest depths of ignorance." Unlike many of my fraternity whose creed is " that where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." I try hard to find out the "meaning of what I read, and cannot comprehend. The word gentleman has " stuck me up," the derivation of the word I have found, but the meaning I cannot grasp at. The Akaroa Mail describes a gentleman — in' italics—as a blatant caterer, who flourishes paper money, indulges in forcible adjectives, is grossly insulting, uses pitiable gestures, and talks Billingsgate. Webster defines a gentleman as "a man of good breeding." Another authority describes a gentleman as " A lump of ignorance and conceit, an ignoramos." Ruskin's definition of the term gentleman" is that " its primal, literal, and perpetual meaning is a man of pure race." Selden wrote " what a gentleman is, r tis hard for us to define." Horace Smith's idea was, that " the only way to be a gentleman is to have the feelings of one." All mixed as they are, help to ruffle my complacently, and leave me more befogged than when-1 started. My ignorance grieves me. Help me someone to a solution. I have Shakepeare's authority in " much ado about nothing " that " Every one can master a grief, but he that has it." An incident recently happened to myself, which I cannot help but chronicle: I went to church, and when there achieved a success which I had not reckoned upon doing. Like other examples of the genus homo I have a nasal organ, mine being of immense musical power, one of the heavy blasts from that instrument of mine is sufficient to alarm a neighbourhood, or avaken the seven sleepers. Well, Sir, everything went on well, until we got to the second Jesspn, when certain premonitory feelings told me that my melodious instrument was getting ready for a display of its powers. Instinctively I got ready my borrowed . handkerchief, buried my head in my hat, and waited. Tchion !it came, but fortunately, as I thought, the shock was but -slight. Horror of horrors, the reader stopped in his discourse, and glaring at some small boys, sitting at the rear of me said, " the boy who blew that wind instrument had better leave the church. Parents giving their children toys of that sort, should see that they are not brought here, but left at home." That second lesson must have been very pathetic, for there was not a dry eye within my range of vision. My remembrance of the rest of the service is very indistinct.

Temporary insanity shows itself in many ways, as a rule, but few persons in any community are so afflicted, fortunately for ■ themselves and others. I want, however, to do my best to write down one phase of insanity, which is far to prevalent in our colonial towns, and is, what I consider dangerous, disgusting, contemptibly low, • apd blackguardly. I allude too the pitiable exhibition which young men make of themselves on the morning of the New Year, which appears to me to be done for the sake of randalism, frightening women and children, together with a love for cheap and unlimited liquor. Bah ! '"To what base purposes we may return, / Horatio !" The Sundowner hopes he has seen, and heard, the last of these mad antics. With your leave, Sir, concluding this " swag " with G. Herbert's lines— •"Pick from tliy mirth, like stones out of the ground, Profaneness, filthiness, abusiveness : These are the scum with which coarse wits abound." —Adieu.