LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 132, 2 November 1874, Page 3

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

* In reviewing,'through the medium of your excellent journal, the doings of public and private men for the last few days—l may say for a good many days—l don’t find much worth dwelling upon. When I find myself stuck in this manner, I always think it best to fill myjcolumu right up with some one subject more or less absorbing to the general run of your renders. At the present moment I cannot think of a topic more likeiy to absorb, more enthralling as it were, to a literary public, than drains. Let me not be misunderstood. I’m not alluding to drinks. I wish to make it plain at the outset that this paper is meant to refer to the drainage of this metropolis. I always like to state what I’m writing about, because there are people who say that, on some occasions, they

cannot make out what I’m driving at. I frequently get a bit mixed on my subject myself, but that’s no excuse for the puerile minds just spoken of. 1 don’t wish to delay this business any longer. I wish to hug the drains at once. If I were paid by the line I might postpone; it. As matters stand, I shall go into this subj-ct without further preface, only reminding you once more that I’m writing on The Drains OF Christchurch— a subject, heretofore, quite neglected by the newspapers, and fraught —oh yes ! oh, very much fraught—with interest to all of us, from the sweet babyboy who paddles bis little feet in these city burns to the aged pilgrim who writes to the City Council because the drain opposite his house won’t flow. The move I think of drains the more I congratulate myself on the subject I have chosen ; and the more I think with what interest Mr Vogel would have perused these lines. He is gone, alas ! His path is on the mountain wave, his home is on the deep at present; but I’m sure lie would like to know ray opinion of drains. Mr Vogel has squared the telegraph business. 1 question much whether a submarine telegraph between this and Australia will greatly conduce to the well-being of this section of the human race. In a few short years there will be an exodus from the Britain of the South to Australia. Considerable people will go. I feel sure of it; and how disappointing it is for a person of industrious habits, who hopes to have left his liabilities and creditors on the other side of the water, to be stopped on landing by minions of the law. When that telegraph is rigged up it will go far to stem a tide of emigration from these shores which would otherwise benefit this colony to a large extent. There are indeed many people I could see embark to-morrow for foreign climes never to return, and I could go down and say farewell to them without suffering a quarter of a pang. Mr Vogel says he won’t be long gone: and I’m glad of it ;'because I don’t see many of bis mates fit to carry on to any large extent without him. I hope he will square up his immigration business in a satisfactory manner, and float a new loan or two. Wc shall want some more capital soon to pay our interest with. Adam Smith, Stuart Mill, or some other fellow, has truly observed that a large increase in the National debt is the most reproductive of public works, and 1 feel it is the axiom of a true statemau. Talking of departures, I see Mr Sullivan has left these shores, and landed in England. I read with interest that he has visited most places of amusement, including the Italian opera. The mother country will no doubt be glad to receive back so distinguished a spn, and whatever else they may say about us in England, they must allow that we know how to treat our criminals here. If the Government intend following the liberal policy just initiated with regard to first class villains, the liners that come out here with industrious emigrants may return laden with illustrious criminals. This is a new and very useful idea on the subject of emigration. I don’t care about pursuing it further, because I’m writing on the subject of drains. To the unprejudged observer in this city it soon becomes apparent that our drains are not keeping pace with the strides we are taking in most public works. Looking at our drains in the light of crystal rivulets they dou’t seem to come up to my ideas of what crystal rivulets should be. They seem a trifle short of crystal. They either stand quite still, or try to flow up hill, They dou’t come down like the water at Lodore, but some of them attract the attention of strangers. A blind man would be attracted by our drains, unless he bad no nose. The best drain we have is the Avon, and I’m glad to mention tne Avon, because the City Councillors had a nice day down there recently. They all went by invitation to New Brighton, and had a most recherche repast, and came back and said they’d enjoyed themselves, and were never more surprised in their lives than next day, when they each got an account in for £1 17s Cd. The repast was conducted on the Kentucky principle; I hear that for the future any citizen entertaining the Councillors will be requested to state what his charges are in his letter of invitation. It seems the fairest way of making things pleasant for all parties. There is some good stone channelling about, if you know what that is. I expect you do, because you must have seen it mentioned in the City Council Reports. There is a stone channel) ist lives near me. Betakes an interest in the weather, and keeps, or did keep, two fine old family presentation barometers on his premises. During the heavenly spring weather which wc have been recently favored with, he gradually got to doubt these instruments. They proved unreliable. He went away one morning when the lark sang loud and high, and the sun shone brightly, and the barometers were mounting up very near as high as that cranky here of Mr Longfellow’s poem. Ho neglected to take his coat, and walked three miles to work. In two short hours it came on to blow sou’-west, and he went home wet. On arriving at his home he found the barometers still mounting, and smiling sweetly at him from an eminence of ever so many degrees ; and then that man went jumping mad, and walked right down town, all wet as he was, and sold those barometers that had been presented to his grandfather, for ever so much below cost price, and invested a portion of the proceeds in drink ; and he says now that in a city like this, where the drainage is so loosely conducted, it’s no use a man keeping scientific instruments. You may think that the above has no bearing on the question, but I only introduced the little story to prove to you that Major Palmer showed the greatest judgment in selecting the site of his observatory as far away from the metropolis as possible. As sure as Venus is the ladylike person she is usually represented, so sure I’m sure she would not trans anywhere near Christchurch. No one could expect it of her. It’s ever so much too unsanitory for a trans to be effected with any amount of safety. To resume our subject of drains—and you know as well as f do how I do hate wandering from the original topic—l may say I was thunderstruck at a paragraph which I recently read in public print on the subject of the bankruptcy fees. The fees at present are as follows Filing declaration of insolvency, £2 ; filing creditors’ petition, £2; filing deed of arrangement, £4. 1 have long looked upon the Bankruptcy Court with a longing eye, knowing as 1 do the prestige that invariably clings to a man who can float through it at the pace of (say) five pence half-penny in the pound. But the present fees arc, to the likes of me, prohibitive. Assuming myself to bo what I urn—stonehroke, how could I raise the necessary £2 to declare the fact to a sympathetic public? Then, again, there is another drain on the public purse in theform of another £2 for filing the creditor’s petition, and assum-

ing that you successfully float thus far, you have to pay up £4 for filing your deed of arrangement. There are of course other incidental expences —all in the form of DRAINS —and 1 can plainly see that the charges 1 have just alluded to render the Bankruptcy Court altogether too exclusive. Why the fees alone would keep me for six months, and leave a fair margin for a liberal subscription to THE drain just in front of our door. You might not believe it. but our present admirably conducted system of drainage affects the druggists in no inconsiderable degree. I was purchasing some aperient medicine the other day for Kezaiah, the youngest female hope of my esteemed landlady. While waiting for these pharmaceutical comforts a lady entered. Her dress has, perhaps, no direct bearing upon the present; question. but she had a hat like a saucer, and apparently somebody else’s dress, petticoat, and boots. She purchased a bottle of patchouli, and paid for it. I asked of the druggist whether the scent business was flourishing just now. With a crushing sigh he told me that it was far otherwise, the fact being, lie said, people here have such a prejudice in favor of the local odours, which they can obtain for nothing, that our orders on Piessc and Lubin are decreasing daily. We pull it up, said he, in febrifuges, but, lord, it don't pay half so well. This drainage is a deeply interesting subject, and I could have kept on writing about it in the above comprehensive style for a week without getting drained myself. But Doctor Turnbull has made use of much the same arguments that I had intended to dilate upon, and if the above re marks had been published before his admirable deputation speech, where would he have been? We are a happy, contented and prosperous community ; we have plenty of morals, heaps of education, the Cathedral coming on, and a narrow gauge being laid down, utterly regardless of cost, life or limb; but, alas, the sweet boon of a limpid drain carrying down upon its unruffled surface the soapy sud or the verdant cabbage stalk is yet almost unknown in our midst. Therefore I say, let us drain ! Oh ! let us drain, even if we have to back each other’s bills to do it with. The above article is on drains. I wish you to feel sure of this—because 1 am not.