LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 245, 23 March 1875, Page 3

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

(From the Press.) A fellow I know came down to this province pretty recently. He knows about railways and engines, and can keep accounts and the like. He is, take him all round, what you might call a first class iron-road-ster. He had heard that we were more hefty on making railroads and altering them, regardless of expense, from broad to narrow gauge, than any other people at present known, so he thought he might get work here. So he did. He got on as a favour as extra hand in some Government office. He remained there a while, and got on the permanent staff, though at that time there was barely enough work for the three individuals who composed his especial department to get through the day on, and still feel they were sort of working like. He says there are nine now in the office, and the work still the same. They find time hangs a bit on their hands, but their accounts are mostly pretty correct, because every account is checked by the whole nine. When any one discovers an error of say twopence, the nine are fit to go on the spree with joy, because then thej feel they are serving their country with energy, And yet you keep on advocating the abolition of Provincial institutions. Another diffident gentleman wanting employment wrote a while ago to one of the heads of the Public Works departments, stating that he was encumbered with a wife and numerous progeny ; that he didn’t know anything about engineering, surveying, or anything else in particular, but he was desirous of obtaining any appointment where common sense would be of use. I understand no appointment of the kind has eventuated yet, which is tne harder on this applicant because I know plenty of appointments in the public service where common sense seems to be rather an incumbrance than otherwise.

Canaries are a very popular institution in this musical metropolis. You have to be careful about selecting them though. I mention the following facts in proof of the above statement. I bought a he canary recently from a most respectable looking man and presented that bird to my landlady. He was a haughty looking bird. I was given to understand that consecutive fifths were a trifle to this vocalist, and the aristocratic appearance of that bird you could never imagine. The first morning he took to bathing himself, and 1 became aware that the majority of his back had been gummed on by his former owner. When that bird had finished his toilette, he was very near as bald as a jug. I didn’t so much mind this, because he might be on the moult, but he didn’t seem to care about singing. I watched him for a week waiting for him to make a trill or two, but he was a terror on silence. I then showed him to a friend who is keen on canaries. He said “ Ah, that bird wants company ; you leave him here a bit.” I did. In a week my friend brought him back. He said “ That’s a real queer bird of yours. He eats all day. He’s eaten two shillings of worth of seed since he’s been here, and once he got that larky on it he escaped from his cage, and I had to pay half-a crown to a hoy who caught him.” I paid these charges. But there was no gratitude about that bird, He would smile at us with that fraudful grin which_ you may have noticed as peculiar to birds which you buy cheap; but practice his scales he would not. Another fellow who knows about poultry came to me and said, “ That bird of yours is pining in that small cage; he’ll never prosper there.” I put him in a large sort of young aviary, price 8s 6d; and then that bird still kept up his scornful mien and refused to encourage his feathers to grow at all or sing either. One morning he took ill with the heaves and died. We discovered at the postmortem that he had no tongue. You mind now how you pick up cheap canaries, unless you’re buying on commission for a friend. It don’t so much matter then, because you feel he may learn experience. I want to be a telegraphic agent. I feel I should be in a position requiring tact and a

good deal of esprit dc corps. I feel so because nothing but a hallowing love of wiring for the press would ever induce a mvu to forward so much news daily for £lO a year, which [ am given to under stand is the stiocml allow< d to energetic agents. 1 don’t think I should hanker after the appointment for more than a week, I could shake the credit of a few friends in that space of time and produce some really curious telegraphic novelties ; but I don’t think I could beat the following which I came across a little while ago “An accident occurred at the Thames rifle butts, which miraculously eventuated in a rather severe wound, but might have proved fatal, and how such did not happen is very strange^ I sympathetically quite approve of the accident but I feel I could not often drag off such a triumph in the way of enigmas as the above. I’m sure I couldn’t.

You will probably recollect the Transit of Venus which occurred some short time since. The New York World gives some useful calculations, based on the observations which were taken then. It appears we are now three or four millions of miles closer than we were at the last transit. In the same ratio, in fourteen hundred and forty years the earth will fall into the sun, or, as the motion accelerates, probably in less time. This is a useful thing to know. Any of your readers who may be alive at the time would do well to insure largely a short time previously, and buy light summer clothing. Its rather startling to think about this falling into the sun, but so long as there s a milliner’s, shop, a public house, and an Insolvent Court there, our people will soon make themselves at home.

Colonel Brett has been addressing the Board of Education. He wants the Board to put a stop to that pernicious system of school committees giving entertainments composed of mixed classes for the purpose of raising funds to pay off debts contracted by rhe schools, and terminating the supposed innocent entertainment in dancing and revelling to a late hour in the morning. The gallant Colonel’s objections to the system he complains of appear to come under three heads. First: that the. audience consists of mixed classes. I hardly see how this can be avoided, .because our audiences—particularly in country districts—are limited. Were it otherwise we might have one entertainment for Good Templars, another for Habitual Drunkards, an evening for Benedicts and their wives, and another for those engaged to be married, or wavering on the brink of matrimony, a conversazione for the Pharisees and Sadducees one night, and a lecture for the publicans and sinners on another. But the committee would have weary work in drafting their audience. lam afraid, Colonel, we must put up with the mixed audience at present, even if we have to commit such a scandalous crime as paying off the school debt with the proceeds, which appears £to be your second objection. As to the third, “ the dancing and the revelling,” it is indeed sad —very sad to think of. My soul faints within me when I think that the groves of Academus may be profaned by the dissipated quadrille, or perhaps even the iniquitous waltz, and the reckless break-down. Such things may not “ keep down all the latent feelings which our fallen wicked nature is so prone to,” but after all, Poll, the cockatoo, likes a dance as well as her patrician sisters, colonel ; and perhaps better, because she don’t get one so often, and on mature consideration perhaps the country districts won’t plunge head long into iniquity, even if they do have a lecture and a dance to follow. A magic lantern is best, colonel, because it’s dark, and you can admire a view of Eamoth Gilead and squeeze a girl’s hand simultaneously. A member of committee told me so himself. There are some people, colonel, who have seen the iniquity of these things, and there are lots more want to see it, and if you go checking them in your daring style, you’ll have them patronising camp-meetings or something.

There is a deal of excitement just now about the Dunedin Races. I’m sorry I can’t tell you who is going to win them all, but talking of racing I have repeatedly come to the conclusion that supposing mankind generally to be handicapped some of us are let in uncommon light. Its the old story of one man being able to steal a horse, while another mustn’t look at a halter. One man fails for £20,000. He is a martyr. Sympathy and renewed credit are poured over him simultaneously. Another fellow goes broke for say £IOO. He is in the estimation of all his creditors the falsest, vilest caitiff unhung. Id's always best, if you will pardon the expression, to give your creditors “slops” while you are about it. You hang on to your integrity and your credit better. How is this? How is it, likewise, that once when I struck a drunken man of about five stone ten, who couldn’t defend himself, I got heavily fined, though it was (honor bright) my first appearance. This certainly was in another clime, but I can scarcely reconcile the above with a recent report in your paper where an R.M. discharges with a caution a gentle peacemaker, who, with seventeen previous convictions to testify to his general good behaviour, is pulled for beiug drunk and fighting in the streets, What the evidence adduced in this gentleman’s favor may have been I know not, but I learn from the report that his opponent was also discharged with a caution, “it being hia first offence." I wish I could go about punching people in that district, Mr Wynn Williams has been taking his usual energetic measures to induce the public to become free and independent electors. I hope his endeavours will be crowned with the success which they most assuredly deserve, The question often arises why those possessing the necessary qualifications should require to be so incessantly reminded of their duties, I may also add, their privileges. I say privileges advisedly. A vote may or may' not be worth money. Let us not dwell on this part of the question. Rather let us say there are times when it has been worth money. But looking at votes strictly in a political light, they always worth—well conducted ones—say a gallon of beer, perhaps more, at each election. Apart from this, there is joy inexpressible in the kiss bestowed by the candidate on the flabby red nose of one’s youngest pledge. What a priceless heirloom is this here kiss ! An elector has also the power—and a sweet boon it is—of making himself inexpressibly disagreeable to any candidate, and of disturbing the harmony, more or less of a public meeting. On those grounds—on which, if space allowed me, I would expatiate more fully—l urge those drowsy individuals who have not done so, to register their votes at once, and by doing so take an active part in the politics of the country, and the beer of the respective candidates.