AN EXPERIMENT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 594, 5 September 1873, Page 3

AN EXPERIMENT.

I really, I may say inadvertantly, made trie experiment of telling an untruth. Before I ventured, it seemed such a little one, and so harmless, that my scruples gave way. I was about sixteen years of age, ami sitting on one of Jie benches iu St. James’s I’ark, when a portly middle-aged gentleman came and sat the other end of it. My appearance seemed tonderest him, and he opened the conversation by saying —“A sailor, I presume?” From living in a sea-port town, my clothes had a maritime cut about tin m ; 1 had acquiied a certain c .nlinipt for “land-lubbers,” and consideied myself above them in general—and Ibis one in particular. 1 therefore answered carelessly, and without regard to consequences, that 1 was a sailor. “What vessel were jou last in ?” queried the land-lubber. Now, fortunately or unfortunately—L have never been able to determine which—a friend of my own age had recently been a voyage in the fruit trade ; so, as he qnes. turned, I answered that my last voyage was in the Two Sisters, a schooner of ninety tons, in the fruit trade. She was originally a cutter, a gentleman’s yacht, lost over the gaming table ; was sold, cut in two, 1 ngthened, and made into a schooner for the fruit trade. We went to the Mediterranean. Fortunately he did n>t ask me what cargo we took there, and 1 did not know, so should have had to put ballast into her; but Iliad told several lies already, consequent on the first one—some, I freely admit, were unnecessery, even to keep up Ihe voyage ; but I got into such a labariutb that 1 told several lies to enable me to gain time to invent others. The first serious stumbling-block I had was —“ Wha did 1 think of Gibralfa ?—and here my invention left me, and I was nb'igcd to sneak through the Strait in the dark, and come out with a mist enveloping the n-ck. After that, I went off again with lie upon lie. I was able to describe Genoa from sea and land, and 1 had been up the light-house, which helped me along ; but I freely considered my questioner a perfect torment. From Genoa, we went with our fruit to Quebec; then we returned from Quebec to PlymouthI had to describe the voyage home, and go into the cold weather, which ,was so intense, I assured my tormentor, that kettles of boiling water placed on the deck would be frozen iu five minutes- How thankful I was when 1 got the Two Sisters into Plymouth and paid off. But my troubles were not ended. “Was I going to sea again?” “No;” 1 said, emphatically, I uas not. “Well,” slid my tormentor “ I am sorry for it, because I am an officer in the Navy, with some influence at the Admiralty, and 1 might have served (you.” I know very little what took place after that. I got a vague notion of being tried by Court, martial and being flogged through the fleet, if I did not escape from this Naval Officer with influence at the Adm : ra!ty ; and 1 ahuo t made a holt of it as we were going out by Spring Gardens, to get away from him. I saw him once again, four years after, as a steerage passenger on hoard the old Brunswick s’eamcr, from Portsmouth ta Plymouth. Ho was generally in a muddled state, and I found out was a brokendown purser iu the Navy, and the father ot a since popular author. He did not recognise me ; four years had altered mo more than him, and mv sailor cat of clothes had given place to a millwright’s suit of cord and fustian. But 1 have never forgotten my painful experience of telling one which culminated in at least a score.— “Taranaki Horahl.”

The latest suggestion in connection with female t immigration is supplied hy a Northern exchange. “ Dancing with a beautiful girl,” says the writer, is a beautiful pastime, but, though a thing of beauty, it is not a joy for ever. Just fancy yourself a masculine at a ball where the rcsycheeked lasses are in the ratio of ten to one to the men ! world is aware that a healthy girl is able to hold out long enough to tire down the partner upon whom she hangs. What then must be the fate of the hapless wretch That has to be partner to half a score of robust maidens one after the other ? This is the state of affairs in the lovely island of Tasmania. As soon as the young fellows reach man’s estate they clear out for the much more 'prosperous colony across Bass’s Straits, leaving their sisters behind them, and this has been going on formany years, so that tbeie is quite a plethora of young women iii Tasmania. Now here is a chance for New Zealand to obtain immigrants The Tasmanian girls are acknowledged on all hands to be the loveliest of the Southern Hemisphere. Let onr Government bring in a few ship loads to the various places most wifeless, and make each fair one return the cost of her importation w'hen she gets married. There would be short delay for recoupment of the passage money, I promise you. The girls would go off in the matrimonial market more readily a Hock of prime ewes in a famine stricken town. Why send to Europe for women when they can be got so much better, prettier, and cheaper so much nearer home ? Besides, it would be a real act of charity to the Tasmanian girls to ship them to New Zealand. Men with winning ways.—Successful gamblers.