THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 68, 13 March 1877, Page 2

THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

"Ive lost my Child, I shall go Wild with Grief- —." Modern farce, "The Council's Bereavement." Another upset has befallen me mentallyI have received intelligence which depresses me so much that language cannot find words to express or pen write the harrowing nature of my feelings. Whisky, whose potent powers has so often braced me up, I have tried without effect. There is no " pick-me-up " in that tipple for my prostrated system. I cannot help it, it does not particularly concern me. Yet. I am a miserably wretched sundowner, and all because the Borough seal has been " Lost, stolen, or strayed, Missed, missing, or mislaid." Why was this sensational news brought to me ? I knew that " Evil news rides post, while good news baits." ; • And I certainly—with niy suceptible ;feel T ings—did not want to be the recipient of the calamitous news of the loss sustained by the much enduring Borough of Akaroa. Gone are all the bright scintillations of

genius ; the false quantity in Latin ; the geographical discovery that " Akaroa is a peninsula;" the graphic delineation of that astounding fact; the opportunities of <§ showing all this to admiring (?) outsiders \ ' gone, Sir, gone, without the aid of Mr. • Bridge's auctioneering eloquence or potent hammer. Awake, burgesses ! and realize ~ what you have lost. I hope not beyond* recovery." "For'tis a truth well known to most, That whatsoever thing is lost, We seek it, ere it come to light, In every cranny but the right." It is " bad form"' andn ot this sundowner's "form " to comment on the misfortunes of others, and I hope in describing what I overheard, a la Mrs Malaprop, 1 may be held guiltless of any worse fault than that of giving publicity to a bit of trifling gossip. Two ladies met, and, as ladies will do, entered into' conversation—Said one, "Have you heard that ..Mr. • is arrested ?" " Arrested! what for?". was' the reply. " Ah! you may say what for; it is for embellishing the Government money. The puzzled look of horror and incredulity on the listeners faces Avas a sight worth seeing and one I shall'not soon forget; You have, with an innocent looking paragraph, stirred up the " dogs of war," Sir. I should have hardly thought that banting would cause so many doughty , i , knights to don armour, and through your columns, rush pell-mell upon the R.M. and Mayor. Have not these champions been-, guilty of undue haste ? It may be that thetT Mayor was quietly chaffing the paragraph- ( seeking reporter of the Mail ; if so, how then my worthy ink-slinkers ? Is it fair foryou gentlemen to " drop on " your rulers about the constitution of the Hospital Committee, before you know under what instructions they acted? May you not be blaming them for doing exactly what the Minister for Justice requested them to do ? Does it not appear like unseemly haste to cry down parties, before you know their names? you should have waited for the Gazette, and then have seen if nomineeism is to be introduced, and; if so, have given, at all events, the Mayor an opportunity of explaining the matter. Yes 1 gentlemen rushes into print. , " Some there be' that shadow's kiss ; Such have but a shadow's bliss. As you say, Sir, the actions of public men are open to fair comment, but this should not be done hastily or on the impulse of moment. Swift penned a great truth when he wrote,- ---" Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent." The lachrymose state I am in about the? 4 Borough Seal makes me almost forgetful ' of the sorrows of the local pomologists. I *-■ hear that the wail of this class, over "no market for our fruit," resounds through the district. What folly, " Make ye not two sorrows of one, For of one grief grateful alone • . To graft a grief thereupon, A sourer crab we can graft none ; Be merry friends !" Yes! with the poet this sundowner says " be merry, friends;" You have the remedy for the present state of affairs in your own hands. You have several remedies, some of- which I - will enumerate : they are— charge moderately for your articles, many of you frighten would-be buyer 3 away, by the extortionate prices you ask, forgetting that these. tell others - who are warned against Akaroa prices, and who repeat, with additions, what has been told them ; open up a trade with the North, Timaru, Oamaru, Dunedin do not represent the whole of the markets of the colony ; vertise your fruit, fresh comers, and visitors, know nothing of your whereabouts or of what you have to dispose of ; support your local Horticultural Society,, through its means, and the Mail's columns pub-** licity will be given to what you grow, and 1 ) who is the most successful grower ; keep * your orchards clean and weedless, for I am told that visitors speak with contempt of the slovenly state your places are kept in, and the wilderness of weeds that some of them are ; show some business energy, ' don't wait for buyers to come to you, but seek them, they are to be found; finally, gentlemen! awake "Shake off dull . Study " self-help "■ —Smiles says it is "The root of all genuine growth in the individual, and exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of natural vigour and strength." Adieu.