THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 258, 7 January 1879, Page 2

THE SUNDOWNER'S SWAG.

" Here we are Again!" " Joe's Annual Address."

''Once more on the deck I stand" soberly repentant for my manifold mis- ? deeds during the festive season. -' Open & confession is'good for"—all men; therefore, without the slightest compunction, | I publicly confess that I am the teetotalleaf who introduced a few lively displays of ' the " noble art of self defence" at the v recent gathering of the clans to witness the doughty deeds of " leather flapping," general growling, and adjective hurling co conspicuously displayed at the, so called, Head of the Bay Races. Of course, conduct such as mine is very reprehensible, at least some persons think and say so ; but then this class of people can never see*H : the point of a joke, and cannot understand "V----how funny it is to bonnet and spoil a man's jj| bell topper when he is a total stranger to, If you; how screamingly witty it is to try I and capsize a " Cheap Jack's" cart, and injure the man's means of livelihood ; how ennobling it is to get up a free fight, and to have three or four gentlemanly contestants basting down, an outsider; how " glorious and beautiful" it is to destroy unoffending persons' property, and how mellifluous it sounds to the ears of women and children—l will say nothing of fathersu of families—to hear language, coarse, j vile, filthy, and foul proceed from your j (un)manly t _ps. Well, "there is no accounting for taste ;" mine, as above described, .5is not exceptional, but I am in doubts as**'-! to the light •in which others view my ; performances. " 'Tis just the fashion, won't our name That 'they all do it," can't . abuse, And, oftentimes, excusing" of a fault, Doth make, the fault the worse by the excuse."

Years since, in the days when I was an -* ardent devotee of pe£- top, buttons, and marbles, the old p-dagogue who con- "-. descended to instruct my mind and fla- v, gellate my body, endeavored to upon me, with a. strap sometimes, that" if ~ ~ a thing is worth doing at all it is worth ■ doing properly and thoroughly." My , after experiences have confirmed the truth of this ajfioin. All this was forcibly brought to ray mind on .he occasion of the late Ird6strial Exhibition, and in connection wj_i a bit of petty meanness which I hope never again to see attempted, let . alone practised, by anyone. I was at the door of the Exhibition, and had just paid . my shilling, when who should 1 see walk -"** up than Brassica, the great rhubarbist, a man;of culture among us. Brassica was forcing his way in, when the lad at the door asked him for the price of admission (one shilling); instead of the shilling,, however, the, lad • received a scowl and a blessing, and although Brassica was afterwards asked by some-other person for the money, he refused to, and did not, pay. After this, thinks I, Tonal Mactonal, with her bad. shulling, is a prince of liberality. Now, if I had been Brassica, and I had been troubled with his complaint, I would have _. religiously kept away -fitetn that Exhibition, and not have enlightened my fellow citizens with one trait in my character, < which I fancy would have been better j kept out of their sight. Many of us like to parade our follies and frivolities, but io t fl make a show of meanness just out-Bana- 1 gher's Banagher. Thiß reminds me of the | Yankee editor who, disgusted with the _- *J meanness of some of his correspondents, wrote— ";The man's an ignoramus, Or, lower yet, a scamp, Who writes for information, And sends no postage stamp." That übiquitous genius, the "intelligent compositor," has been at high jinks lately in the columns of the New Zealand journals. . I do not know, how- ** 5 ever, that lam quite right in putting down I all the vagaries of genius to the type- :. slinger; it strikes me the "intelligent" .; has to answer for many of the sins mitted by the '' intellectual proof reader," as, for instance the Lyttelton Times gravely informs its readers that letters of neutralization have been granted to a denizen of Canterbury. Can anyone inform me what these neutral letters are ? I have read of " neuters in their middle way of steering, neither fish, flesh fowl, or good - red herring." Can the metropolitan thunderer have discovered a specimen of this rara avis ? Again, "'a handy man "is advertised for "to whitewash &c." There's a job to undertake! He must be some- A thing more than a handy man who can find etcetera, leaving the task of whitewashing that indefinite article entirely out of the question. This almost beats the Invercargill Weekly Times, which, some *- two months since, informed its readers ' s that " a couple of petition brick walls," belonging to a building in Dunedin, had been blown down ; and a little further on it gravely stated " that one of'""the Fern Hill Club were blown in." One knows that married men who rejoice in club membership are blown up by their wives, but blowing in must be a new discovery, or a pew name for whisky. I wonder if