SAWDUST! SAWDUST.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 305, 20 June 1879, Page 2

SAWDUST! SAWDUST.

To the Editor of the Akaroa Mail. Sir, —Certain districts have peculiar diseases, and according to situation and local influence, so are those diseases developed. Some localities arc notoriously prejudicial to the well-being of the body corporate, others again have the most pernicious effect on the seat of reason; that is to say, on that part of tha human body situated above the shoulders, and nearest the moon. The atmosphere of Little River, X have frequently noticed, baa a most extraordinary effect on the human passion*. From a _criea of observations oxtendin"- over a considerable period, I ln\. piu tin. i'nnt ' mil d) lhust. itcd m ano unions manner At v tain pcnod> m the mnu d ]onrno> ol this oddest oi phru ts sm i„ ol the inhibiting hue an nn si m"( k i i it' 1 n i >*- (h i i 1!, -, X til Istl l \ I l !/< d \,h i v (I'M 1 '" '

change of the moon, operations not- being conducted according to the tactitas of modem warfare, but in aboriginal fashion, and from behind stumps. Of a verity the cause must be in the atmosphere o*f* the locality. But experts tell us the climate* of this beauteous spot on earth, called New Zealand, that we all love so -well is changing, and truth to tell the passions of the temporary occupants are changing also. I will, with your permission, endeavor in passable English;'to illustrate the situation. Travelleis whose business necessitates late hours, in passing through the hamlet (Little River to wit), have been of late suddenly startled out of their trotting meditations by plaintive cries of " sawdust, sawdust." Sometimes the voice would be heard in the swamp, and then again it would appear to rise up the range, and the gullies would return the echo with a weird and wailing intonation until the sound would be lost in the bleating of Mr Joblin's sheep. Residents in the neighborhood wag their wise heads and point to an unfortunate gentleman whose silvery apex has absorbed, the idea that he is a " buried stump." Angels may weep, but the chronicler of this singular study for ethnologists, being a sinful sufferer by the original " apple trick," revels in the idea of his stumpship trying his hand at rhythming. But the muses in this case, with their usual heartless selfishness, demurred about the terms," and struck for more whisky, and report says—though report is generally wrong —that the luckless individual has had a relapse, and the cry of " sawdust, sawdust" is still heard in the dead of night, and the song of the morepork is a thing of the past. An eminent physician has given his opinion that the only remedy for this strange malady, which he attributes to an abnormal estimate of self-importance, is to make the patient a Justice of the Peace, as' he. appears to have a craze in that direction. But this cannot be, as I have just received a telegram from my friend Sir Hercules, and he states with commendable delicacy, that his Government do not intend to ," create" any more justices at present. This is much to be deplored, as the physician says that.the patient will have alternate fits of sawdust and doggerel. cantos, with visions" of stumps in-battalions, on foot and in buggies, in sensational succession, and that the denizens of the monumental city of Cathallan, in after ages, when sitting round the ingle on a stormy night, will subdue their refractory, larrikin progeny, by mysterious tales of the banshee that swallowed a sawmill. Yours, &c, A RESUSCITATED STUMP. P.S.—The address of the physician can he had on application.