BROUGHT INTO FOCUS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 452, 19 November 1880, Page 2

BROUGHT INTO FOCUS.

(Contributed to the Akaroa Mail.)

I am going to adress myself strictly to the Burgcssesof Akaroa. They know me — and oh ! just don't I know them. Now, my dear B's, — not busy B's, I can't call you that, you know — The subject of my discourse is the Mayoralty of Akaroa — and a very dry subject it is too — well of course it is—but*" that's your fault. You can make it more lively and profitable if you choose. An obscure scribbler named Shakes-* pcare once said " There is a tide in the" affairs of man which taken at the flood may lead to fortune." It is probable that the writer of those lines never heard of Akaroa—but had he known; all about it, and you, ho couldn't have more pithily expressed a more appropriate warning—or perhaps suggestion, in view of the approaching Mayoral election. Gentlemen—and ladies, of course, I beg your pardons,—it seems to me this is your particular tide—see that you take it at the flood. Firstly, sink all private differences, petty jealousies, and paltry littlenesses, for the general weal. Secondly, choose as your candidate the tried and proved practical business man, whose interests are identical with those of the place and yourselves—oh ! yes, you've got more than one of them among you—only weigh them well with one another in the balance test. Thirdly, make up your minds and then stick to your determination, and see him through. There is more depending upon your next Mayor than either he or you dream ot* at the present issue. With him will be associated either a glorious or an ignoble civic career. With yourselves it is either a matter of sinking or floating. Whichever the result—you alone will be responsible. I won't trouble you more at present,but that's plenty to go to bed and sleep upon. Most of my writings are rather that way, I'm told.

Married women with husbands—be patient and submissive with them— never n;-g or growl at them—lest a time should come when they arc not—when— you'll n\Us them, to say the least of it. Take warning- by the following tl'Ue and thrilling narrative of what occurred but lately on a run at no great distance from the township. The old woman was fussy that day, and the burden of her song from breakfast to dinner and from that to the evening meal was " old man, how many times am I to ask you to turn those beastly horses out of that paddock ?" Goaded at last to desperation, the old man Avent out to do her bidding. Pre cntly there was the clatter of hoofs round the front and the old woman saw her gudeman on the back of the old grey mare—a present from Captain Cook some years previously—making at full speed toward the paddock, which was speedily cleared of the horses complained off. But heavens ! Avhat is this !—the old man is ill or something 1 He wavers to and fro in his saddle like a drunken man— then falls heavily to the ground, while— oh ? how shall I write the horrible thing ! —the old grey mare proceeds to —yes positively to tear out his very vitals and devour him. To seize the poker in one hand and the broomstick in the other aa as with the old woman the Avork of a moment, —to rush screaming to the rescue 1 a moment more—whack ! bang ! and over the nearest fence went the grey mare ! Throwing herself on the lifeless mass, she found it was only a dummy stuffed with straw. And the old man watched it all from behind the coAvshed, and "he chortled in joy" and Avhen he Avent in, his old woman remarked it Avas rather sultry that evening and that she had been chasing a blue bottle round the kitchen, and that somehow or other a:l the horses had gone out of the paddock so he needn't bother. And he didn't any more—no more did she. [

I see you've had a letter from J. Sundowner, D.D.D. — i.e., drunk, dirty, and disreputable. By his address, his AVhisky prospecting has landed him in a rather large claim, no rights allowed. If he gets writing any more of his swagger to you, just increase my screAV a bit, and I'll havoat him. Mind you, it's AVorth it, for Jack's about the shreAvdest and withall the hardest hitter you could find to have a bout with. Under all his nonsense there flows a placid stream of whiskycolored, hard, practical common sense that takes beating. I'm glad to see him to the fore again, though, and so will a crowd of your readers be, I warrant. I never told you, I think, of a slight mistake he made up north. It appears he wrote a leader on " Native Affairs " for the principal local journal, and also at the same time a budget of his usual swag memoranda for some _ other rag. He was very drunk at the time, so the transposition of copy into the wrongenvelopes was easy. The editor of the first paper was in a hurry, and knowing Jack's fist,, sent it in the last thing to bo set up as it was, and unread ; but he kneAV all about it next morning, when his leading article began with a quotation and an extravagant eulogy of liquor generally, and ended wi th another quotation and some Anaereonic remarks on the beauty of the Maori girls' ankles. The other journal returned his copy with the remark that they Avrote their own

leaders as a rule, and at any rate never accepted contributions from the asylum ! That hit Jack awfully hard, for he fancies himself on the pen-—some !

ASBESTOS,