BROUGHT INTO FOCUS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 444, 22 October 1880, Page 3

BROUGHT INTO FOCUS.

'(Contributed to the Akaroa Mail.)

What unconscious sarcasm underlies many of the adjectives we use in every■day application. lam led into this vein of thought by the mode of expression usually adopted in chronicling the general meetings of local bodies. The ■" ordinary meeting " of such and such ■a Road Board, etc., took place. How , :optly the phrase applies 1 Could any other term so fully express the exact nature of these meetings as that word *"ordinary"? Of all the ordmarieet things they are ordinarily the most ordinary and so are the members, as a rule ; and here your paragraph on the re-appearance of larrildnism in your midst brings to mind a joke perpetrated by some of the species on one of your local Road Boards—a joke which had the merit of being sarcastically funny "without injury to property, or danger to life and limb. It's a long time ago now, but it will be remembered that a schoolmaster named Firelock once occupied a house on the beach, and he taught the young idea of Akaroa how to shoot. With commendable foresight,seeing that the mansion he occupied more resembled a wool-shed than a place of tuition, he procured a tin plate, on which was emblazoned forth in gold the legend, "Scholastic Institute," and this he screwed on the front of his door. The new office for the A. and W. Road Board was shortly afterwards built somewhere adjacent, the building being •completed on a Saturday night. During that night, by some mysterious agency, Firelock's signboard was removed and affixed to the most public portion of the new building. The next day being Sunday, and a goodly bhow of inhabitants on their way to church, it was refreshing to see quite a crowd gazing at the anomaly of a place destined for the inanities of a Road Board bearing the title of " Scholastic Institute," while it wriuld have been anything but gratifying to the members of that Board had they overheard the fervent wishes that permeated the throng that it might so eventuate, and the sarcastic allusions to the fitness of the title ; for, strange U cay, the public really thought it some "new name for a Road Hoard office, and were only enlightened when Firelock himself appeared, and began to take down everyone's name and address in a large pocket-book. Poor Firelock ! he lias long since taken wing elsewhere.

I'm glad to sec some one is moving anent the Kegatta. The inability to maintain it annually in its pristine excellence has been no less a slur on the enemy of the inhabitants than a sure indication of the badness of the times. If those who are responsible for this would only consf *r the light ifc is viewed in by those outside Akaroa, they might be stirred up, perhaps, to renewed exertion. It is openly asserted that there are no men now in Akaroa to what there used to be —only a few self-satisfied, somnolent individuals without a particle of go in them, who are quite satisfied if they get enough to eat and more than enough to drink, and can scrape along somehow. And are the men and youth of Akaroa going to let that be said of them ? Let them up and rouse themselves, and prove the statement false. Let them show outeiders that, living by the sea, they can keep and sail as good boats and as well as their neighbors, and hold their own on the water against all comers. It used to be so, and can be so again. Let others see that instead of an effeminate and sensual herd they are hardy, active colonists ; let them, in short, show that they think great things of themselves, and others will begin, perhaps, to credit it.

Said a fiend in human shape with a preposterously heavy hunting crop in Ins hand, and a huge pig dog at his heels, whom I met by chance on the Summit road, " I say, mister, are you Asbestos?" I assured him that I had not that honor. " Oh ! " he said, " because I was told he was you, and I wanted to see him privately." And then, lowering his crop, he proceded to discuss that i individual. I won't bother you with his remarks ; in fact, they were rather too brimstony to be pleasant; but what puzzled him was the adoption of such a pseudonym, and his reflections thereon brought to my recollection a peculiar old couplet on the very point in question. It seems a nobleman had a certain famed racer in his stables rejoicing in the sobriquet of " Asbestos." The groom in attendance was thus questioned by a visitor— " Say, my good man, do you call this horse Asbestos because he stands fire like a veteran ? " "No, sur; we call Mm As-bost-oa cos there ain't a better tin." Your readers will doubtless remember old " Jack " Sundowner. That disreputable character, when he left the wallaby

on the Peninsula, went North and got mixed up with Te Whiti, though he fenced clear of the A.C. I had a letter from him the other day, in which he says he is just starting South again. It appears that some benighted individual down there has been amusing himself pouring -whisky into the water used for drinking purposes by a certain church congregation, and that the results, most of them being Rechabites, were somewhat startling. " Jack " says he's off to find that man. He thinks he must be worth cultivating, and that there are endless vistas before him of unlimited whisky, probably intended for churchgoers, but to be possibly diverted f. o ji that course, and in a better direction. It is an ill wind that blows no one any good. ASBESTOS.