THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 34, 9 July 1874, Page 3

THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

You can get a good square feed in this town for a shilling. Some of the proprietors of these restaurants don’t stand to win on all comers though. I know one gentleman who docs his lunch by weekly contract, who generally contrives to eat about a roll and a half, with butter to match, before his meat arrives. He finishes up by eating another roll and a half with las cheese. On such terms as these shilling repasts are no chop for the proprietor, whose interests arc at stake. 1 heard of a gentleman the other day who gets his shillingsworth in a different manner, but gets it all the same. Be goes into one feeding saloon, and asks for the carte. If he don’t like the programme, he goes on lo another restaurant, and then another if need be, till he comes across the particular dish he fancies, and the owner of that feeding saloon draws his shilling. It shows talent, this docs, and it is almost worth consideration if it would not be worth while starting a company to pay this gentleman’s repasts, on condition that he daily gave the shareholders the straight tip as to where the most succulent luncheon was to be obtained.

Lecturing is a riskyjtrade. I know a little about the show business, and I am sure it is. Dogs and monkeys will draw the human race from the orphan of eighty summers to the babbling babe of eighteen months, far better than lectures. If you have been struck for a bill, or been jilted for the eighth time, or anything similar has happened to make you feel like jumping on the whole human race, why give a lecture on some instructive topic at any winter entertainment. Give it them, slow and steady, for say an hour, and you may go home happy ; but don’t try it on to make a rise for yourself. There was a fellow working round north, and he gave a lecture in which he, being an old whaler, was prepared to prove that it was really a whale that swallowed Jonah. Some few people paid a shilling to go into this entertainment. Not many, say fifty. I can hardly believe this, but say fifty. The lecture did not last long, owing to a majority of the audience chaffing the lecturer, and subsequently hustling the Scriptural old whaler oil the platform. A friend of the lecturer here interfered, and offered the audience back their money. XT he audience availed themselves of the offer, and all was peace. It was rough on the lecturer though, because as at least half of the audience were deadheads, and drew their money like the rest, the result was a pecuniary loss to the gentle whaler. I have seen an orgaugrinder in England paid to go away, but for a performer to pay even dead-heads to leave is a feature of the show business essentially antipodean. As Mr Hydes observes in “ Grif,” “ This is a wicked world.” I’m getting full on good deeds. Mine always turn round on me. I never try to oblige any one but I get the worst of it. I found a dog a while ago. In a burst of honesty I advertised him. I had to pay for the advertisement, and had very near to fight the owner because 1 wouldn’t buy the brute. I came across old Ben the other evening. He had, apparently, been drinking something alcoholic. I saw him home. He informed his wife he had been seeing me home, and I understand she’s going to make it lively for me soon. There was a horse with a saddle and bridle on came Hying round our way the other day. He was captured by some kind little boys and pounded next day. Some owners of horses would have been grateful for this because when a horse gets away its hard to know where ho may get to, especially his saddle and bridle. This owner took a different view. He saw his way to a rise. He summonsed the gentle youths for not taking the horse to the nearest pound, and as under the Act it was impossible for him to lose, he got damages. If ever you see a proud steed erecting his mane a-neighing and a-pawiug of the ground you let him on a-neighing and a-pawing and have no truck with him. Mr Andrews’ motion about cremation seems to have amused you. I believe in it myself. If it ever does come in, the following style of obituary verso has been suggested :

The boast of heraldry the pomp of power, And all that beauty all that wealth ere knew, Await alike the inevitable hour

The path of glory leads but to the flue. And this is all that’s left of thee Thou fairest of earths’ daughters : Only four pounds of ashes white Out of one hundred aud fourteen and three quarters. I want to tell you of a proposition made by an hon member during the Parliamentary discussion that followed on Mr Andrews’ resolution. The hon member suggested petrifaction as an improvement on the original idea. I don’t know,what the cost of petrifaction is. 1 never petrified any fellow myself, but the idea is good. As the hon member observed, you could have your ancestors all around your room, and could also, if any member of the family had been objectionable in bis lifetime, utilise him by macadamising the garden walks. Dr Rayner is apparently of opinion that even if the evil that men do lives after them, the good should not be interred with their bones.

I feci glad that trains are not going to run north on Sundays. I am glad because we were getting wickeder and wickeder every day, opening museums and lihiaiics and

things on the Sabbath ; and though I’m sorry for Mr Maskcll (who had all the best of the argument, by the way) and the northernites, it as well, perhaps, when, from necessity, we have to do a little bowinc: down in the house of Rimraon, to let our genu flexions be as few as possible. If we have to do a little wickedness, for the sake of the traffic and the convenience of the public, by running Sunday trains to Port ; let us not, plunge too deeply into iniquity by running trains everywhere, rather let us be inconsistent and afford that large class of persons alluded to by Mr Knight a chance of becoming travellers, and getting the drinks they cannot obtain in Christchurch by travelling to Lyttelton. The number of Sunday trains is a question for the Government, but. T do hope they will hear in mind Mr Jc.bson’s remark that be would only approve; of tiiui •‘unless the Government could prove, from their own principles that to run four trains on Sunday would pay.” If wo do go in for sins of this kind I quite agree with Mr. Jebson that we ought to make them pay. You remember the hairless horse perhaps. I have a good story about him. Caoutchouc was being shown in Nevada, and an individual wearing an old-fashioned coat with capacious side pockets came to see him. The exhibitor kept Ids eye on this party. He saw at once that he was no common visitor. He saw in the man’s eye a gleam of cunning and speculation. Watching him closely, ho observed him handling the tail of the horse in a suspicious manner with his left hand, while in his right he held a bottle. The alarm was quickly given, and the man was caught as he was rushing out at the door. It was supposed that he had intended disfiguring the horse with some strong acid, and ho was about to bo giveu in charge to a policeman when some one pulled the bottle from his pocket, and it was found labelled “ White Sage Hair Restorer.” The fellow proved to be the agent of this wonderful article, lie said all he regretted was that he had not just got one gill of the hair restorer on the animal’s tail. It would have been ten thousand dollars in his pocket, lie said, as in less than a fortnight the horse would have had a tail that would have swept the ground. No man with a bottle in his pocket is now allowed to go near the hairless horse. He is at once set down as a disguised agent of the great hair restorer. Anyone perusing the. above narrative will allow that we don’t know much about the art of advertising here yet.