LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 300, 29 May 1875, Page 2

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

(From, the Press.) When a man subscribes a ten-ner, or what not, to a charitable institution, it does him good to see his name in the paper. It used not, we are told, to be correct to let our right hands know what we did with our left; but things alter. They have altered to that extent, that if our left hands, and other people’s too, were not posted in the charity of the right, alms would go out of fashion. Collectors might perhaps get a shilling or two, or more likely a threepenny bit, from fellows who would sign themselves “ A Friend,” but the large amounts would languish a lot. There is something in feeling you’re generous, and there’s some satisfaction in other people knowing it too, but the course about to be adopted by the City Council is indeed sad. They are going to publish a list of those persons who haven’t paid their rates —and print it in large letters, too. They’ve been straining the quality of mercy too much It’s not a bad move though, Messrs Raphael and Ick, and, may I add, well worth your fivers. The result will be that most of the defaulters will part at once ; but I fear you’ll have a number of distressed sick people, and widows and orphans petitioning to be let down this time.

Poor old Brigham Young. He’s a prophet you may have heard of. He has devoted his life to getting married. In 1865 he had two hundred wives, there or thereabouts. He has has probably been married several times since. He must be more or less a family man by this time. His tastes are conjugal. Things are turning out rough, though, on the venerable prophet. His wife, or rather one of his wives, is going in for a divorce on the ground of ill-treatment. Brigham says she ain’t his wife, and this point has to be argued yet. Meantime the Court decides that old Brig pays his wife 3000 dollars to prosecute the action against himself, and 500 dollars a month for the maintenance of herself and children. Supposing that the 199 other wives go in for divorces also, the prophet will go broke over it. Cause of insolvency, being coo much married. This will be a sad warning I trust to those who pine for two hundred mothers-in-law.

A gentleman who, I learn from a district police report, is an old offender, was charged recently with drunkenness. He was dismissed with a caution on promising to leave this province by the Otago. This is not a bad idea. It is a decision on the principle of paying a hurdy-gurdy boy sixpence to go into the next street. The drinkist, however, should have been sworn to secresy, for the police authorities in the province he may next favor with his society may follow our example, and release unto us with a caution a well-educated burglar. When a fellow is leaving town to take up his abode at (say) Ashburton or Kaiapoi, he of course gets the usual presentation from his numerous friends. The presentation may or may not come off, but the departing friend is always cheered with a dinner. We're not a bad drinking community, but stuffing is our forte. We do stuff when we get a chance. When we weep over a departing friend we sob with our mouths full. When we build a church we feed all about it. When we open railways we feed about them, and are glad of the chance. In an upcountry district, not very far away from Churchchurch, they have been building a church lately. They’ve had a meeting about it, and some discussion took place as to what should be done on the day the church was consecrated. It was decided to have a lunch afterwards, and a tea and entertainment in the evening. The report says—- “ Some other matters of minor importance having been settled, the meeting dispersed.” Of mil or impoitance I should say they were, compared to a lunch and a tea. General Sheridan, reporting to the Investigating Committee of the United States, says that the number of people killed and wounded since 1866 for their political opinions, is as follows: —Killed, 2141; wounded, 2115; total, 4256. It’s as well in countries of that kind not to be too political. It would be well not to have any political opinions at all. I never have any, even here, except a very good opinion of the candidate who pays the best for a vote. I think it preferable to dwell in a country where insurance risks don’t slide up and down in a scale with political opinions.

I’m sorry about the fire at the Orphanage. There are mansions about this town I could go a few miles to assist if they were in flames. I could throw crockery out of the window to save it very near as well as most people. We are lightning some of us at that kind of assistance, but its not often we have a chance of making money out of it. Some people in Port when the fire broke out theother night, went round helping and helping; and some mean cusses helped themselves to the orphans’ money boxes. This was a new form of visiting the fatherless in their affliction.

“ Si possis, recto, si non, quocunque modo rem .’’ But this was a mean style of making a rise, The fellows that did it would take a potato peeling out of a hungry pig’s mouth, and pass it off on a blind child as a new kidney. The mistletoe is a fine old vegetable. Our ancestors used to think lots of it. The Druids used to cut it down with much ceremony and then send the plate round. This custom has gone out. The mistletoe is now used mainly for purposes of osculation. It is a very ancient institution is kissing. Most people seem to like it. You may have observed this. It brings people to trouble sometimes though. Here is a case at point from an English paper. Two boys concluded to go kissing. They robbed a piece of mistletoe, valued, according to the evidence in the Court, at sixpence. The chairman of the Bench of Magistrates said this was very sad, and fined them 60s each, or two months’ hard labor. It seems rough on the intending osculatists. Next time I expect they’ll chance it without mistletoe. There is a fellow up our way, Flobbidge, who goes in for floriculture. Cropp, his neighbor on one side does not keep fowls. He is on terms of great friendship with this man. The other neighbor Cobb keeps fowls. His birds have been in the habit of eating any exotics or turnips Flobbidge may have planted. They wander round Flobbidge’s garden, picking and scratching ; and when he flies round after them they disappear through their respective gaps with that pensive forgiving smile w.hich is peculiar to the barn door fowl, when opprobrious epithets and shovels are flung at him. After many complaints to his neighbors, Flobbidge decided to poison them. He distributed lumps of arsenic and bread about the place and gave orders that all the young portion of his

household should remain in all daj. Then he went calmly to his office. In the evening about 26 birds lay dead on the field. He rushed off to tell Gropp how he had avenged himself. “ You don’t mean you've poisoned those fowls do you,” said Gropp, “ Why I bought ’em all yesterday from the fellow that lives the other side of you.”

You are probably pretty well up in life assurance by this time. I’m not; but the following bears on this topic:—ln a charming village in this province, renowned for scenery and well, fair drinking, there dwells a good old man. He draws his wages regularly and drinks them carefully. .Recently an insurance agent went lecturing round those parts, and his words sank deeply into the old man’s heart. He felt how right and proper it was to secure a fund for his descendants. Consequently he went about insuring himself. It appears one of the questions he had to answer on the printed paper which applicants have to fill up was, “ How much do you drink per day,” or words to that effect. To answer this truthfully would from what I know of this sweet old waif, have prejudiced his show very materially. So he sat down and thought and wrestled with his conscience; and he being a very truthful man, came very near jerking up his insurance ideas altogether. At last he remembered that many years ago, when he was in needy circumstances, he had put in a short day on a pint of beer. So he entered that allowance on his application paper. He subsequently got : passed in at cost price, so to speak, and since then all the other inhabitants of that sequestered village assure the insurance authorities that a pint of beer is their daily allowance; and insurance and square gin are doing well. I’m not up in education myself. I do not understand the matter. Ido not grasp the New Education Bill to the extent I ought, but I’ve grappled a bit with the speeches of hon members ; and, so far as I can see, things are going to be very much what they were before. I observe one gentleman wishes to increase the powers of local committees, and I observe this with surprise. Anything Mr Tancred says on the matter of education is worthy of attention, but from what I’ve heard I should say local committees have power enough at present, and queer skittles, by the way, some committ es are. Take Mr Knight’s instance of a Peninsula committee. Out of seven six could neither read or write. Take Mr Bluett’s instance of a committee discharging the master because his horse strayed into a garden belonging to one of the members. Take another instance I know of, where a member of a school committee objected to the master keeping a cow because he was evidently getting too rich. I think committees have power enough just now. They sometimes get snubbed very gently by the Board, but then they can always take it out of the Domine. It reminds one of Captain Absolute kicking Fag, and Fag venting his spleen on the boy.