A LECTURE ON BUTTONS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 691, 16 July 1875, Page 4

A LECTURE ON BUTTONS.

—0 John Perryhingle contributes the following to the Melbourne weekly Times;—“ Talking about lecturing, I call to remembrance a turn I bad rnvself at the business. It was at Wellington, in New Zealand—then a paltry lictie town with a paltry little population, which last was divide I into twoelasses—the tub-thumpers and the rum drinkers. Well it so happened that the spec which had taken me to New Zealand turned out a failure. For the matter I was not alone a sufferer. There were dozens of young fellows hard-up and cashless; emigrants from England, who had never learned to dig or plough didn’t as yet care to steal,and had only began to beg as a kind ot amateur business to ho cast off when fortune smiled upon them. Well, a mong these chaps there was a little man named Sngden. He was the son of a wealthy button manufacturer in England, who had sent him to the antipodes with Iris blessing and LSO worth of buttons. Well, buttons weren’t much account in New Zealand in those days, and my little friend couldn’t sell many. So he got to tie very down hearted. At last as one day he and I were sitting on the wharf smoking our last pipeful of tobacco, and dismally discussing the advisability of making a journey into the Wairoa, a bright idea seized upon me. “Buttons,” said I—we had got to nickname him thus—“ Buttons,” how much of your stock-in-trade have you got left 1” “ Oh, d nmy stock-in-trade,” he growled, “ pretty near all. Why 1” “ Well, then, I’ll sell it for you, my buck, ah ! and at a good price too.” “Yon will,” said he, looking up with animation in his muddycoloured face. “ I will,” said I. “ Como with me. We must raise a couple of notes, and the thing is done.” With this he and I retired into the ccsy hack parlor of the Aurora Tavern, and there and then I revealed my scheme to him, first exacting a promise that if I sold his buttons for L3O, he would lend me LI 5. This done, and having scraped together the necessaryfunds, I proceeded to the Independent office, and ordered a hundred posters to be prepared thus :