THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 178, 2 April 1878, Page 2

THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

" Be Courteous to all."

" Chesterfield's Advice."

" Civility," we are told, *• costs nothing," and the practice of this cheap essential to a good understanding between man and man has, there can be no doubt, a refining influence upon those who act up to it. I am led to moralise thus by thinking over what my particular crony and boon companion, Busybody, related to me, one evening recently, when we were "sweetly communing together " about other people and their affairs, to the neglect—so our calumniating friends will doubtless say— of matters personal and affecting ourselves. Well, we cannot help it; "it is a way we have in the army" of gossips. Says Busybody:—"Jack, old soaker, I cannot help thinking that the public men of this small hamlet, and the adjacent districts, are guilty of gross discourtesy toward a gentleman who is an old resident among them, and who informer years represented them and their interests, not only in the Provincial Council of Canterbury, but also in the General Assembly. I notice that, for some considerable time past, when any matter of a public nature is brought to the fore, whether it may be concerning the politics of the colony, the advancement of the district, or even a social gathering, that this gentleman does not seem to be asked to take act or part therein. I call such actions the word I have used, perhaps others may have a stronger expression for such incivility." Says I—" Busybody, my dear saurian " —B. has a splendid mouth for oysters— '* all what you tell me may be perfectly true; I do not know who you are referring to, but I am one with Burke, who said "

" Our manners, our civilization, and all the good things connected with manners and civilization, have, in this world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles—l mean the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion."

Was I there ? No, much to my disgust and annoyance, I wasn't there, for the best of all reasons, and that was—l never got an invitation. " The Press," in the shape of one of my bosses and Mrs M'Tavish, the wet nurse, were there, specially invited, but Jack's sundowning respectability was not thought good enough for the Saxtonian feed. Anyway, I had my revenge—l peeped in, and saw my old boss, J. D. G., in a dreadful state of excruciating agony; I fancy the horseradish must have given him cramps in the stomach, for he was doubled up like a napkin and groaning dismally about the " Roast beef of Old England." One of my present bosses seemed to take; great pity upon James, for after looking at him sympathetically for some time, he commenced to howl out something in Irish, which had a kind of reviving effect upon that dilapidated reveller. Oh, but just wasn't " the band "in fine form ! Hadn't Maestro Ye Piper got them -well in hand ? Wasn't each instrument and instrumentalist perfect in their separate parts, and didn't they take their " key note " smart and promptly from their illustrious leader ! Not even '* a wet sheet and a flowing sail, and a wind that follows fast," could disturb such beautiful unanimity — " you scratch my back and I'll rub yours. And the choruses, and the musical honors — " Glorious Apollo," no wonder James was indisposed: But the best thing of all was —just at that moment Rodrigues came and kicked me off his premises. Well, Mr Saxton, there are worse fellows than you and hie. I wish you a pleasant passage, and hope, whatever you do, you will not neglect to lay-in a lively stock of medical and creature comforts. I won't say say it of you, but I wish someone would say it of me — " His life was gentle, and the elements So mix'd in him, that nature might stand up And say to all the world—this was a

man." ,» " Be the piper that played before Moses," and that is a musical form of oath, Cr O'Reilly has just about forged the right kind of bolt that is necessary to hold the body corporate of your struggling municipality together. It is all humbug poohpoohing '* me counthryman" and his ideas. If you want to hold together and keep your status, as a borough, you must do what many of your betters have had to do, and that is borrow—if you can. Even I have had to come to that. It is, in my opinion, sheer bunkum to talk about it being premature to think of using the borrowing powers which the Council have. What did your copy-books—that is, if you were ever guilty of such an enormity—tell . you, Mr Mayor and Councillors, regarding procrastination. The proper time for borrowing will never arrive if you wait for it. Wait, and your roads will become "sloughs of despond ;" your properties will decrease in value owing to the bad state of their approaches ; your trade will stagnate owing to your cowardly cautiousness; your "army of visitors" will dwindle away because of your doing nothing to make the borough attractive, and you will finally subside into the arms of the Akaroa and Wainui Road Board, a comparative nonentity, losing your splendid endowment of land, your " high falutin" promises, your "His"Worship/ your. Town Clerk, and, what is worse than all, that glorious production of superhuman genius, the idolised and nine-locked Borough Seal—put that seal in capital letters, Mister Printer. I am no prophet; I never lived in tho same street with Mother Shipton, or yet with Dr dimming—did I, Pathrick, avick—yet, so certain do I feel about the suicidal folly of following the waiting policy in a matter of this kind, that, I will stake my billy and boots against Councillor Penlington's jack plane upon it, I feci confident if it is followed the results will be just what I have prognosticated. This puts me- in mind that —

"I've heard old cunning stagers Say fools, for arguments, use wagers." The consanguinity of 'Handy. Andy are> like' their great' "prototype,' continually

getting themselves and others into-muddles-through their over officious zeal and blundering carefulness. A friend of a friend of mine, who has had some little experiencein the vagaries of the Handy family, packed up some fruit recently to be forwarded by steamer. Looking round for something on which to write the proper addresses, he espied some old printed tickets of a church " tea worry," and or* the blank side of these he wrote the necessary directions, afterwards laying them down with the writing upwards. Tamingto his factotum, he said—"Andy, nail these boxes down, and when you have done* so, get some tacks and put these addresseson the lids, then take the boxes down to the steamer's agent for him to forward them to their destination." All this was clear and explicit enough to anyone except a member of the Handy family. Andy did everything he was told with only one, to him, trifling alteration, and that was— as he did not think the boxes could go safe with the written direction uppermost, he reversed the cards, nailing the proper address under, and showing that the boxes were intended for " Church Tea Meeting, Admit one, W. Henry Cooper." The owner of that fruit was astosished when the shipping agent came to him and enquired, in stentorian tones—" What the lovely and Divine he meant by playing hisfeeble witticisms upon him ; if he wanted to ship goods, let him do it like a man and not like an egregious quadruped."" Andy was calledJn, and explanations followed. Says Andy's employer, good humoredly, to the whilome wrathful forwardist—" Ah, Iron, turn over the cardsfor you know that— "Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls must dive below." So Long.