THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 131, 19 October 1877, Page 2

THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

■'Procrastination is the soul of business " Go-a-head experiences."

■ I am worried mentally ; have road diversion troubling my thoughts ; supineness, or rather indolence, of road board harassing my reasoning powers, carelessness of the general public annoying me ; whilst the intolerable laziness of everyone concerned, grieves and torments me. The particular road diversion which I am " down on" just now, is that long-talked-of-bit which has been promised to be made, so as to do away with that dangerous piece of road, known as the horse-shoe bend, on the German Bay side of Robinson's Bay. This essential piece of work has had a considerable amount of-talk scattered and wasted over it. It has been talked about; talked over ; land owners have been talked with ; ratepayers have been talked at ; talk lias been expended upon the Rlirvevor, the Road Board clerk, the winds, the walls of the senate chamber, where the members of the Board, talk, and do nothing but talk, with a view to the readers'of the Mail being deluged by the said talk. It is talk, talk, talk, and nothing but talk, all promises connected wiiJi this diversion have had but one ending, and that ending is talk. Bah ! It is sickening to find utility saerified to empty utterances, to read that procrastination rules the rulers, to know that funds are in hand for a required work, to experience'in one's self the desirability of this work being done, yet to know that those who should ''shape to it" are just twiddling their thumbs, and doing the " talkee, talkee," line of business, instead of the " up and be stirring." I do know that there has been one fatal accident at the part of the road I wish to ?oo diverted away.—Qiißry—Are the Road Board members waiting for a second edition of that catastrophe ? Say, Frederic Walter W., "I shail turn the deck head down and pass." You, "make it," and just "euchre" that old piece of road. " Who e'er amidst the sons Of reason, valour, liberty, and virtue, Displays distinguished merit, is a noble Of nature's own creating. Not a hundred miles from Akaroa resides a merchant—mark ye, gentle reader, a Merchant—who is a gentleman of highly imaginative faculties, great in profundity of thought, philosophic minded, and prophetic in his utterances as to what will be, "you know." Centralization, together with strongly developed "squatting interests," is his great form. Among his other oddities he has original notions as to the best means of giving publicity to the wares he has to vend ; he considers newspapers not to be the best advertising mediums, but that black boards are a far preferable means toward getting at the public, and inducing that close-fisted body to unloose their purse strings. Poor unfortunate newspapers, and newspaper men ! Under the influence of chalk, and

at intermittent periods, the black board, favored for the time being, blossoms out with some startling flights of fancy, and ebullitions of genius. This is one : For Sale Butter - ~ ■ \Eggs : . . 1 small dog ■ 250,000,000 feet standing Timber. I have no objection to black boards, as such, but I certainly do not look upon them as ornaments to palatial business premises, besides, I agree with the Rev. Mr Spurgeon, whose advice to business people is— " Advertise! For the life of business is black ink." I do like politeness, it shows such utter abnegation of self, such a wish to please others even at the expense of a little trouble to one's self, it tends so much to turn the " ways of life " into " paths of pleasantness," "that, one is delighted to come across that vara avis a truly polite and thoroughly courteous person. " Them being in}' sentiments." is it a wonder that I am extremely fond of visiting a certain Literary Institute—never mind where, I am not £ oing " to lay " the general public " on to this good thing " —where the custodian is a model of politeness, attention, and urbanity ? No sooner does my manly although somewhat seedy form—ah ! John Beecher, you and square gin have a lot _ to' answer for—disclose itself to the optics of that functionary, than, with a bow that Chesterfield "might have envied, I have the Press handed me, with an insinuating smile which seems to say, "Your servant, Sahib." And this to me too—me you unbelieving doubters — me, Jack. What ? Don't believe ? lamat it again, am I? Just like me, is it? A turnip' you call me, do you ? Well, I may be a vegetable, and a soft boiled one too, but I will stake my swag and billy, and throw my voracity into the wager, that every word I have penned is truly (un) true. Who will take me up ? " Fighting weight ten stun six!" " I am constant as the Northern star, Of whose true-fiVd, and resting qualit}*, There is no fellow in the firmament." "Truly "a stiff-necked and perverse generation" are the .councillors of your romantic borough. They prefer droning over " obstructions " to going into figures, and the facts connected with them. " Doorsteps " before finance! Swine mansions before monetary matters ! Too thin this. Too petty altogether. What are the burgesses to think of this apparent shirking of business? I know what I think, and shall, if this continues, " work the thunders" of my thoughts—as I promised previously—through the medium of the columns of the Akaroa Mail. What a difference is there between the written promises made before election, and the actions taken subsequent to the consummation of that event; between the briskness that precedes, and the indolence which succeeds, the elevation to councillordom ; between promising to do, and doing as promised, and between talk and work. See all this for yourselves, Messrs Akaroa burgesses, and, like Bill Nye, wonder that " such things can be." Are you taking a nap, Councillor Quackearly ? Has slumber overpowered you, Honest John ? Has somnolency" got the "upper" hand of .the " understandings " of the twin knights of St. Crispin ? Iμ a state of snooze, cifear Villyam P.? Partherick, an me konshance its slaping ye are, bad scran to yez, and its the gossoon Colleen ye have in yer ar-rams ; for decency's sake arent ye ashamed of the pair of yez's? Venus, my charmer, you lately dozed off into a " little song," was that the correct "clothes peg ?" Ah, sweet Nomianby! " Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber: Thou hast no figures, nor no fantasies, (?) Which busy care draws in the brains of men ;. Therefore thou sleep's! so sound." —Adieu.