A MODEL BUSH PUBLICAN.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3003, 9 February 1881, Page 4

A MODEL BUSH PUBLICAN.

A writer in the Mount Perry Mail tells the following story :—" A short time since, when tho Queenslander aboriginal agitation was at its height, an enterprising Sydney journal sent a 'special' to report on the condition of the blacks out west. This ' special' was a very clever young gentleman, and he started for the Never Never fully intending to write a pamphlet on the cruelties perpetrated by the native troopers towards their unfortunate brothers. After innumerable adventures he got as far ns a certain township which we will callW . He put up for the night at the only hotel the place could boast of. After seeing his horse all right, ho walked into the bar to make some inquiries of the land'ord and to have a glass of ale. Immediately about a dozen men followed him in from the veranda, they crowded round him, grasped his hands, and vowed eternal friendship, whilst one of them giving him a smart slap on the back, ejaculated, '&o it, cockey/ ;here being no police protection in-the township, and our Sydney friend not being of a pugnacious disposition, he thought the best thing he could do would be to chime assent with those rough-looking specimens of humanity. Accordingly ho replied, * All right, old man,' ignorant of the meaning that would be attached to his words. Immediately the hotelkeeper said, 'What's yours Jack, yours Jim' &c, until a dozen of drinks were laid on the counter, which disappeared quickly with a ' Here's fortune' to the stranger. The stranger was surprised, but was still more surprised when the hotelkeeper demanded payment for the drinks. In vain he expostulated, the host had twelve witnesses to prove that ho shouted, and at last he had to shell oat. _»isg_sted he retired to bed without supper - arid' soon fell asleep. When he woke up it was- morning; but, Heavens, where was he ? Ifl pfeee' of the quiet bedroom he was lying near a and a tremendous he_j\„fi_itffl,fiW oT**eT--y f *P scr __ii_yaround him ; a few yards from _iu_*sfcood the modest hotel/into which the bewildered ' special' ran to know the meaning of the abominable proceeding ~*b he called it. Boniface smiled and informed the ' Bpecial' that he had been drfnking heavily all the night as he could see by the heap of bottles. An angry discussion followed, in which oaths freely exchanged. The end of it was that the young gentleman had to pay £10 for his jeouliar spree, and returned to Sydney a. month after a wiser and sadder man. He hasn't gone «' 'special' since.