FACILUS DESCENSUS AVERNI.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 117, 31 August 1877, Page 3

FA CIL US DESCENSUS AVERNI.

TO THE EDITOR QV THE AKAROA MAIL. Sir, —With a wounded knee-cap, a battered countenance, arid a bad pea, I still have the Briton's love of fair play ; arid I wi.4i to know who is responsible for the pit falls which await the unwary stranger who traverses tho streets of this town after night fall ? I, Sir, being new to "this place, put. myself under the protection or! two gentlemen, who prided themselves upon their knowledge or! the dangers of these regions. Yv ith tho confidence inspired by ignorance, I walked on until I suddenly found myself—so to speak—in a hole. There *:* an abysmal chasm, crossing the main i!:.HO!ig-hiVire, and, in the absence of. moonlight and gas lamps, this pocket Hades receives any stray passers by. "When I found myself up to the chin in this pit, I looked i'or the help of my friends. They, being used to the place, .helped me out, and observed, " Ah, yes, there is a hole there : you should have kept clear of that!" I didn't say much ; but, like the parrot, I thought a lot. However, I went on ; a few yards further on, one friend yelled out—" Look ahead !" But it was too late. A gentleman, who, I hope, will live till he is Mayor, has a box—a sort of coffin-—stretching across the pavement. I landed athwart this in time to hear my friend's wurning-shiiek, but not in time to save my knee, or prevent my curses from ringing out against the owner of the abandoned chest. Yet, again, I got me up; and next time it was a door-step, with a window beyond. I went- I have left Akaroa, and it the owner of the door-step pursues me for the value of that window, I will balance against it my doctor's bill, and sue the Council for the remainder. Bather than stay <i second night in Akaroa, I would eat the Borough Council, with their boots. Farewell!— Yours, A Dilapidated Stranger.