THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 167, 22 February 1878, Page 2

THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

" Jack (and Jill) went up the Hill."

" Flowers of Poesy."

I have read in a good old book, which ! has gone through innumerable editions, j " in divers tongues," of the difficulties there are to contend with in endeavoring to " serve two masters," and this reading has caused me to think that if it is so difficult to please a duo, how must it be when the masters are five in number, with another one self-imposed. " John Barwick, Clerk to the Board," is burthened with five masters, and, as if this was not enough for John's appetite, " John 11. Baker" drops upon the other John, with orders, dictatorially given, as to how he must in the future address his sublimity when business or necessity call upon him (t'other John) to have to correspond with the John who rules the local blunder and trigonometry department of our paternal Government! I thought C. to B. John an overworked man before the advent of the Baker. Did a question arise as to the goose ranche track over Brazenose, John's bosses ordered him to "up stick, and'rim" there; were Mount Bossu's " paths of pleasantness"' rudely assailed, then had John to take the track and smooth down asnerities ; did the Long Bay road champion twig a vagrant boulder on that delectable ascent, then was John told to " paddle his own canoe " heavenward, and report on the obstruction ; was there a broken bottle about the Hill-top, a fallen tree at the Okain's peak, a mud puddle at Le Bon's saddle, a rumpus at the Kainga, a clay slide at Mount Berard, or a disputed track upon the "Baron of Wakamoa's" domains, then the übiquitous John wa3 in demand, aud supposed to be at this baker's dozen of places at one and the same time. But all these duties combined—with office and clerical work as a mere amusement— cannot be so difficult to perform as is the task of Baker. It was "the last straw," we are told, •' that broke the camel's back;" perhaps-John H. will break John's. Ah, John! Right is right, to follow right Is wisdom' in the scorn of consequence; The sixth commandment is very plain, very brief, and very concise ; we are commanded in words that are unmistakeable, to '• commit no murder," but how grievously is this command itself too often murdered. 1 have a vague remembrance that on former occasions I have endeavoured to inculcate this commandment, whilst alluding to the barbarous mutilation which " the Queen's English" receives from the mouths of so many of her lieges ;. yet, strange as

it may appear, my preachings, my reasonings, my arguments, and my ridiculing this evil, has not in the least tended to check its growth and wide-spread dissemination. Very, very recently, the elected head of a public body," whose duties are onerous and multifarious, informed those whom he presides over, when they were *' in solemn conclave assembled," and with a gravity befitting so important an occasion, that " he had taken the statuary declaration, as ordained by law." On a more recent occasion, a debate (?) took place in the borough runanga upon some matter touching finance, when one of the "illustrious and learned" enlightened his brethren by telling them " he did not see the good of money laying in absence." Observing a look of blank amazement depicted upon the surrounding faces, and being asked what it was he had said, he gravely repeated the words as above written. I could tell a few more instances, but desist, thinking that "enough is as good as a feast." Now, is not this too bad, coming as it does from the " creme de la creme ? " If it was me, or any other sundowuing, illiterate cuss, then there might be an excuse, but " for those placed in authority over us," it is " shocking, my masters,' shocking!" Someone in the days of Elizabeth wrote :—

" But far too little Avas the herd of such Who think too little, and who talk too much,"

The rising generation of Pakeha Maoris are tolerably precocious ; they know, as if by instinct, how to hold their own, and are, as a rule, not to be had in the matter of making a bargain. In Akaroa, the government jetty is a favorite resort of these abbreviated editions of " the coming race ;" they meet and congregate there, ostensibly to fish, but, too often, really to compare notes, discuss adventures, plan traps for the unwary, and cogitate schemes for their own amusement and profit at the expense of their confreres and elders. At the latter species of recreation they are exceptionally good. A few days since a gentleman, who is at present paying a temporary visit to Akaroa, and who is, if correctly reported, not to be had very easily, strolled on to the wharf, and into the company of one of the guileless looking chicks who was apparently pursuing the innocent amusement of rock cod fishing. Espying some fish laying near the verdant looking child of nature, the gentleman said—" Ah, my lad, you have some fish there ; will you sell them ? " " Yes, sir," said that prettily-behaved small boy. " How much for them, my lad," interrogated the would-be purchaser. " Sixpence, air," answered that good little child. No sooner said than done ; the bargain was closed, the sixpence changed hands, the gentleman proceeded to gather his bargain, and the sweet cherub, plus sixpence, made room for someone else by clearing himself off that wharf in " double less than no time." While the buyer was thus diligently engaged, a shrill soprano, fetched him up short by querying—" I say Guvnor, what are you doing with my fish'?" v Your fish, you young rascal," replied che socalled " Guvnor," " why they are my fish, I bought them from that lad," pointing at where the good boy had been. Tableau. That sweetly.pretty child had sold the other boy's fish, and sold the buyer. The dear lambkin understood—

" The good old rule, the simple plan, That .they shall take who have the 1 power, And they shall keep who can." " A good servant, but a bad master,'* fire is said to be, and I, and many more beside me, if they were honest enough, could say the same thing about " fire water." Opinions may, and do, vary, but I contend that Glenlivet, taken medicinally, is a good servant, and my squatting friend—if I may presume so • far as to write so—Slip Panel is quite of my opinion. I don't know how it was, neither does Slip Panel know how it occurred, but we both know that, on a dnuithily hot and dusty daj', about three- weeks since, Slip Panel'had been doing the " through the wild woods we wander and chase the buffalo " business, and I-—well, I had been loafing and sponging about, so that when I and Slip Panel met in the evening, the " bad master" had me right enough, and glorious old Slip panel was only just about " bilge free." We commenced to converse pleasantly, although somewhat incoherently. Slip Panel was graciously benignant, and I distinctly remember his saying—" Shack, give it name, o' man," when who should turn up but guis," and he said—" Jack, if you don't turn out, I'll kick you out,"—l left with alacrity and some other language—" and you, Slip Panel, just come to bed," and poor S. P. was hooked off. History records that toward the small hours Slip Panel got into a state of somnambulism; that he knocked up a gentleman on the pretence of — " shay, oF fel', gi's slight; " that after gentleman number one had got rid of him, he roused .up another to tell him where he was, and how he got there; and that, finally, after being taken back to his bedroom, he was heard feeling over the walls, upsetting the effects in the room, and soliloquising thus: —"No you don't, not 'f I knowhs any—hie— thing ; lock m' up in beu'ful shellar—not way treat shentl'man; punch Mark's shed," and then " the mighty fell." But where was IV Oh, never mind that; I might have been with— " My own friend, my own friend, There's no one like my own friend, For all the gold the world could hold I would not give my own friend." So Long.