THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 45, 22 July 1874, Page 3

THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Reports of Road Board Meetings arc not usually what one might call light reading. A man would be a glutton who could swallow more than half a Road Board at a time, but you can occasionally come across something original in them ; in the reports I mean. The beneath is an instance of the above. At a recent meeting of the Riccarton Road Board, a letter was read from a gentleman owning a mill in the vicinity, asking permission to put a notice board of the mill on the finger-post at Riccarton Church. The Board did not think it advisable to grant his request. I’m sorry for this, because had the request been granted, the precedent established at Riccarton might have been followed up in town. A deal of information might have been afforded by means of sign boards erected in different places, bearing inscriptions as thus:—“To the City Baths,” but this is looking too far into futurity. “To the “ Press ” office, where for two pence you can get a first-class family paper, and a “ Globe ” for a penny, if your Missis won’t allow you to afford twopence.” You needn’t offer me £5 for this sentence, because I shouldn’t know what to do with one. “ The next lamp-post four Sabbath days’ journey from this one.” I feel sure the sign-posts would do the State service, and they might have put strangers in the city in the way of knowing what street they were walking in, a matter which is at present very risky for the oldest inhabitants to bet upon with any amount of certainty. There’s a gentleman among us going to lecture on the whale. I shall probably go to hear him. I feel it would do me good, but I would’nt have you think that I’m a whale on lectures. I feel better when I stay away. I could be absent from them for many years, and grow robuster every one I missed. Lecturers generally go in to improve one. I never met a lecturer sufficiently hunky to improve me, and I weep over their failures and my own insufficiency to be improved. I should like to have heard Mr Waterhouse on Fiji though. I gather from the report of that lecture that cannibalism went out of fashion in Bau owing to Mr W. pluckily refusing to eat a plum pudding. Mr W. had, however, far more trouble in inducing Thakambau to renounce polygamy. Poor old Thak, it seems, only wept silently when spoken to on the subject, and when we learn that he had pretty well a hundred better halves (78 attended the muster to receive their discharge), I’m not surprised that Thak funked breaking the divorce question to the ninety-nine ladies who were to receive their conge. It must have been a sad sight this breaking up of a happy home. It was, doubtless moral, but I can fancy poor Thak singing. “ Tell me my 78 hearts why morning prime Looks like the fading eve—(da capo)

Why the gay lark’s celestial chime Shall tell, shall tell these 78 souls to grieve (da capo). My heaving bosom seems to say Ahl you 78 hapless wives your love’s away—your love’s Away, your 10-o-o-o-o-v’es, away.” Hooray.”

I like contrasts, and the most striking one to sweet old Thak I can produce is one of an American Millionaire who died recently. In the newspaper local which dilates on his life, virtues, and charity’s, the following sentence occurs “ He was never married, and was in all respects a most exemplary and estimable citizen.” I’m afraid this great and good man must have been a little envied. The refreshment rooms connected with our railways are very excellent to those sections of our population who like teacups and buns. It is possible, if all I hear be true, to get alcoholic refreshment on one line here but it is done in the coaching style. The train starts and pulls up a few hundred yards from the station to take in water or something, and there being a public-house handy, the passengers all alight and take in brandy and water. What a blissful line this must be where the exigencies of the public service and the

comfort of the passengers go hand in hand together. A Dunedin E.M. has recently decided that publicans supplying drink on Sundays to lodgers and their friends, do not commit a breach of the Act. I think I shall go and ’are in Dunedin, unless a similar interpretation of the Act is taken by Mr Bowen. I think so, becausa I fancy I could live happily. I could offer myself as a respectable lodger to some respectable licensed victualler, on the following terms : Bed and board free. Self aa respectable lodger, to have bar parlour as my Sunday sitting room. Under such circumstances I should of course be glad to receive a few friends who would donate me a small bonus, say sixpence, to pay for their drinks (with their money it is needless to say), and the strictest honesty of course. Its a leasable looking trade, and a more paying one than one I have been pursuing lately with some amount of success. I go into a bar, and ask for a pint of beer. I quaff half of it, and tell the landlord he has given me the wrong/ beer. He apologises, and offers a fresh supply, which I invariably accept; thus getting a pint and a half at the same price as a pint. One can’t do business in this regularly though. A lady correspondent of yours (from Paris) has a very interesting paragraph on costume. She observes that “ girls ought to be dressed with the greatest simplicity, that which constitutes their charm.” I dare say she is right. It is a question upon which I should not dream of offering an opinion. The writer goes on to say the following is about the correct thing just now:— “ Demi-cuirasse of black faille, closing from top to bottom by steel buttons, sleeves o f greyish taffeta, rovers in black faille, and similar buttons. Hat to be in harmony with toilette.” What demi-cuirasses, black faille, and revers may be I don’t know, and I don’t believe you do ; but they read aa if the get up were nice and simple, and I hope the demicuirasses and reverses will be numerously worn here, because you know our girls don’t go in for simplicity in anything else but dress, and if they don’t care for harmony in any other shape, why they might as well have a trifle, as your correspondent suggests, in their hats. The Domain question has lately been engaging considerable attention; I don’t wonder at it, I’m fond of education. You know I am ; but while quite sympathising with the feeling which induces our rulers to enable a man to educate a numerous progeny for a pound a week, and which tends to make classical scholars of all the rising generation, I confess I can’t see the necessity of jumping a portion of the Domain for a College, which may or may not afford chances for our youths to get polished off on the cheap, I’m prepared to bet against this class of education being got on the cheap, but whether or no, why, in the name of goodness, need we jump the Domain? The walks of those superior nursemaids, who kindly supervise the exercise of the Christchurch children, will be more limited than at present, and the ground now sacred to the Archery will be occupied by scholastic gentlemen, who by a long course of study, may learn to say Bo to a goose, while we have at present .actually amongst us, any number of geese who are really able to string a bow for a belle. The spoliation of this portion of the public property, already quite small enough, and the discourtesy to the Domain Board you have already wired into in your columns. I have only to add that, if a subscription is going round to save the gardens, I’m ready with half-a-crown, even if I have to borrow the money to do it with, and even if a grateful posterity should think fit to erect my petrified form alongside of that of Mr Wynn Williams. A friend of mine has been in trouble lately about his servants, at least his wife has. He met me a fortnight or so ago and said, “we’ve got such a gal. She can cook, get up dresses, work a sewing machine, and only wants to go out four nights a week.” I said, “ you have indeed secured a priceless jewel.” My friend came to me yesterday and said, “ you remember the gal I was talking to you about. She was a failure. She was lazy, dirty, saucy, and drank too much beer, and had fits when it was her night in. It took three men to hold her when she had fits. We have sacked her we have.” He is a very particular fellow my friend is about his servants. Most people here would have been only too glad to raise that gal’s wages. Some men never know when they have got a good servant.