THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 72, 27 March 1877, Page 3

THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

" When Johnny Comes Marching Home, > my Boys ! Hurrah 1 Hurrah 1" Essay—" Uses of a Wheelbarrow." What a pity it is that our natuies are so contradictory. No sooner do we do a I thing well and justly, than we seem to get dissatisfied with what we have done, and in nine cases out of ten, rush into print to prove to ourselves and others, that a negative is a positive. A wiser man than Sundowner wrote "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be ; and that which is done, is that which shall be done." Do you endorse this and my prefatory remarks, Mr. Duxbury? Your speeches at the recent meeting of the Road Board were well and wisely given, no doubt the subject matter had received from you the gravest consideration. Considering that you spoke in the belligerent month of March, I think you are justified in prophesying " fights," although I cannot think that a " fight" ex- • tending over " two or three years to come" would be edifying to the public—damaging to the combatants it must be —Why attempt to "gild the refined gold" of your oratory, my worthy Road Board Cicero ? Why not be satisfied with the platitudes used instead of rushing into the bosom-of our common parent the Mail, and endeavouring through its sympathetic columns to explain, alter," amend,, the glorious truths f which must have fallen with such eloquence from prophetic lips. Oh! for Dr. Slade to raise the spirit of Mother Shipton, who, doubtless would be delighted to know that her gifts are still used in this ."mundane sphere" Let this be a warning to you, Mr. Chairman, not to lead a debate again in a wrong direction. You may only. ■ get " no reply " for your thoughtlessness. I am inquisitive. "The question now I want to ask, - Is simply—why the deuce . When a thing will sauce the gander, Why won't it sauce Ihe goose." Ecstatic bliss! I am in it! I've struck fusil oil! " Kiss me for my mother," Sir! Like King Canute I shall" get drunk every day in the year." My lucky stars and . literary tastes have put me " dead on " to a " sure thing." Get a bigger copper, Mr. Hooper, I want a hogshead of she-oak onaccount of the "sure thing." I am "dead on." Oh! Jack! Jack! to think you should $ wade in at the last and fish this out, "tenders are invited for fencing dividing fence." I am the man for the job, Mr. Dalglish. In my time I have '? fenced in," within myself, more gallons of " stone "* fence," post and rail fence," "deep sinkers," "tidal waves," " whisky fences," than any other sundowner in this location, and I have always divided my fences with my drinking mates. Have'nt I Councillor j Waeckerle?—l've a stomach now above your paltry sixteen shillings worth of "incidents." Give me that job, Mr. D., and • come to a dinner with me, Gulpup, arid iay other friends, "at Beecher's." As an inducement for you to come, I will make an after-dinner speech, .*nd present you with Professor Kissel's latestandbest production. In the dim future Ihave visions of Seager and Sunnyside. Ah me all that we earn worth the earning ? ' Is all that we gain worth the prize ? Is all that we learn worth the learning. ? , Is pleasure but pain in, disguise ?" ; ~ ' Peculiar have been the doings of the j County Council, but something wonderful has been the achievements of one of its members, who appears to be irrepressible. I read that Mr. Barker moved and seconded resolution, presumably carried it, for he is—Jack in the box-like—up again, proposing another resolution which, doubtless, failing Mr. Bradley's aid, he would have seconded, carried i and then proposed a vote n>f thanks to Mr. Barker for his energetic efforts in polishing off business quietly, systematically, intelligently, without the aid of colonial blow and superflous gas. This gentleman's achievements beat that of an Irishman, who said he had struck his opponent " twice at once, and then again directly." As Dominie Sampson exclaimed, failing other words, prodigious. . .1 have not been there lately, but if I get that " fencing " job the odds are that I shall have to go, doubtless, much against my will.' !have a natural and inborn antipathy to the "realms of justice" as'they exist at Akaroa. The chief temple is cribbed, coffined, and confined ;" is dingy, and dirty ; has a perpetual perfume about it of the " knock-you-down " class; the walls are oleaginous from overmuch shouldering; the floor is filthy, bespattered with expectorations; the air inhaled iB foul, in fact the whole temple, is no credit to the Government, and should be " iriiproved offthe face of the earth," to make room for a building more adapted to the •requirements of the district. Your R.M. and his brother magistrates must be "in truth and verity," thorough MarkTapley's, for however they can sit hour after hour „■ in such a place, and breathe such vitiated air, yet still live and be jolly, this deponent knoweth not. Keep me from those realms. " Black spirits and white, Red spirits and gray."—Adieu.