THE MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION.

Dunstan Times, Issue 980, 28 January 1881, Page 3

THE MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION.

(Cy Garmet VValch ) New Y ar’a Greeting—Good Resolutions— Ghr strata ll tcoilecrious—An English Village—Waits— A Haunted, House— Personal Exigences - Ltirius a non— A Little Story—The Professor’s Mistake. “A Happy New Year” to yon all, my good readers, from glacier-throned New Zealand to the torrid strand of Carpentaria; may yon all make—and keep—any amount of New Year ’resold ions, forgive any number of old grudges ; and, generally sp aking, imitate that wily animal—the serpent, in sloughing the skin of 1880 only to reveal a more gorgeohS garment for 1381. For iny own part, old and grizzled as I am growing (my eldest daughter found grey hair No. 1 last week), I am inclined fo look with a s Tt of pati iarchUl-air upon these recurrent ho'idays 1 riSind rfie of the time, good gossip, when mV Christmases were passed in a little (tillage in Kent, whither I was home by a real genuine four-horse coach, horn-blowing guard, Chriistrnas • hamper • leaded roof, genial hot • brandy - and water - drinking Coachman, all complete ; and when to the sound ot Christmas chimes pealing from the ivy-grown tower of a church built before the Christmas era hod reached its 'teens, I was dragged, unwillingly 1 must confess, to the Christmas morning service, leaving behind me the savoury odours of ’“ Halsteal House” kitchen, permeating all apartment!! a'ike, With a noble democratic disregard Of tha proprieties .. t 1 remember also, good gossip, how 1 invariably over-ate me of that same Christmas dinner ; encouraged 5n the act of indulgence by two maiden and two widoWed ana’s, all anxious to make the little Australian visitor happy, and each desirous of supplying the place of his far-off mother. Their blandishments alone were not sufficient, but I think the pud ling succeeded in obliteratin' distant th nights of kith and kin, while’ the Hot elderberry wine at night certainly gave even the in Condi- snrtW a rosy hue. Night, too, was the time for tnose mys’erions c iter .vaulors t|ie “ waits,” co upos mI of certain robust villagers.’ who, having partaken freely of the hospitality of several other mansions in the-eigh lourhood, aycracorrespondingly void of time a..d tune. “ Jack.” 1 once heard one of these 'midnight ea-ollers observe to bis fe'low hj iwler,l say. Jack, with my stomach full of beef ail I beer I’m da-he I if I can’t sing like an adj dive Robin.”— whereupon they incontinently y.d e 1 forth “ God rest y >u m rry, gentlemen, See." fir the e (ideation of those tfrhose rest and mertnmsht alike v'.-iUisHed at the a tun I of the awful discord—ani the “ wait,” . by .the way, said neither “stomach” nor “dashed,” but used expr ssinns of a stronger texture, and m ire suited to the bucolic mind. Nigh',- too. good, my gossip, brought something else besides rusk-accompanied eMerbffr’iy wine and. the “waits”—lt brought a creeping sensation down my juvenile backbone, a shn Idering horror of “ going to bed,” increasing as the night wore on, and reacting its cbm ix when I found mysfdy actually in my own little dumber, and alone with the’ moonlight and the consciousness of the trap-door overhead and the long dark lumber closet running at right angles with one end of the room. Nor—yonr car close to mine, good gossip—now,- whisper— the house was haunted /—Aye, yerly, jpunited.. Had npt Cousin Mortice, sitting up late smoking His nipi in the big bricked-floored kitchen, had he not, 1 say, heard a lung low shuddering sigh ; hail he not seen a lambent, ft nne playing round- the , Aval's ; had not : Aunt Ann rushed speerihless'y back one evening fr-un her task of closing 'ho front parlor shutters to fa’ll bade fainting into the arm chair—arid to rdfitso, —ob donbly-dfstfiled l liorroh of her- silence —to r-fuse over af er to give a name to ■what she had seen-and did not I myself rnui qul v ms parts, did not I upon one memorable night, just before returning to Denmark Hill Grammar, School, ,did not, I distinctly feel a hard slap on my bare leg as I was springing m'o bed, and turn mg, ditl f not find uo hing, absolute y nothing: These and many other incidents, still fresh, I guarantee, in the minds of the survivors, all.prove that Halstead House was haunted Ah ! well, haunted or not, it has passu V from the possession of the good peep's who then owned it, and who, wlieth'-r in Heaven, as most of them are, or‘on Earth, as s'omo’STill remain—can now otr'y think of ft with regret, as the dear -old home of many, many happy years. “ But what," says the-reader, “what in the name of gnolness has all this to do with the Exhibition, wi'hrtMel,bourne, with our bright New Year?' Nothing whatever; an’it please ye, sweet realer, bnt at this festive sjessjon 1 claim privile lge. Always discursive, { choose to bo rfnnbfy Sinow. ss the. palt--blue smoke ri.-ci from my last JBSQ, pipe, art! f ide awav ru air, much as all'mv Cqndejt loop's &q,.Se. . ?.V the hsve'jou ever’heard my istory of the New, Giilm*'Expedition f 1 can hardly hi trig inis "fan h'n'fyionjiegyUur of a letter to a more ap-irnpiiaS-contrushin than bV spiilnirig thn yarn. Ttnpw," theft, that a former friend of mine, one I’tuf^sor

—or, as lie styled himself, Professor - i Holtzkopf, ashort-tempeied, a long-worded German, arrived at Sydney just when the first Expedition to New Guinea was being formed. He saw playeards calling a meeting of citizens favorable to the project, and, as ho took a great interest in it, and wished to ail' some of his ponderous theories ho trotted on the evening'in question to the Town Hallj where the meeting Was to be held. Now, it so happened that instead of finding the room devoted to the sacking explorers, he wanders I upstairs and downstairs like the anserine hj ro of nursery story, ami Anally into a Chamber where a subcommittee On drainage Ami sßWeragb wbre debating, and eXairtiniilg Witnesses. As innocent as an unfilled sausage-skin, the N.-ofcssor—oougia f elating himself on having at last found th) object of his search—tonka seat and Mstefled. Ho heard Alderman A expAtiating rtn the value of nightsoil as a manure ; Councillor B enlarging on culverts ; Councillor C dancing a verbal “fling" amnngA".outlets an 1 inlets, slnicevalv S. efitters, stench-traus, and such like little plaything*. He heard a good di al about surface and Underground drains, mam and subsidiary sewers, levels, flushings, and soon ; hut the minutes neW by, and not one word met bis CArs concerning the tonic wherewith he Was printed tU his fat HpS. Nine o’clock came and went—the quarter, the half-hour, fnrthree-quarters and still not a syllable of what the /irqfesserial soul thirsted for 1 At last he. Could sit still no longer. The eve-nog he miiht have devoted-to “ bier ” or “ Knaster” was gone—had been frittered away in the most nvovokmg manner.. He arose, towering in his wrath, fully five bet one, and, just as Vlderman Q was in the middle of a modern Cloaca Maxima. Mm B -ofessor burst, forth with— *! Adi ! vass fur Dummheit ist dees --Yon calls de ee'OeZ'ms to come and seh peak spoilt de NooGeeny Egsncedeest-ch-ns !u nd ven dey co r ues you dalks, nod da'ks, und dalks, von trains uud schlooshes nnd coolvarts un i all snoch schweinerei ! I vnul ynnst loike veil to dell me amt in der Teufel’s name has -lies got to do mit de No » Geeny E spec lent,sehens ! Po’ztinsend Ronnervftter, Noche-ntnal,” and the /Lo♦ehsor bounced out of the room, and was far. far aw-ay before the Al lennen liad half recovered from their astonishment. Now, whenever I hear “in conrt, in camp, in grove, ’* anyholv Sneaking irrelevantly or very Wide of the mark, I invariably shout in the echoing depths of my inner consciousness “ Vot der Teufel has dees to do mit de Noo Geeny Egspeeleetschens ?”