LYTTELTON LEGENDS, No. 6.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 353, 30 July 1875, Page 2

LYTTELTON LEGENDS, No. 6.

MONKEY TOWN. I cannot say how much of the £2500 was spent on Monkey Town, all I know is that the people are rated over in that corner as well as up at the back of the cemetery, fined not refined. No. He was only fined £5 this time ;it was £lO last time. You are right, malice often takes the garb of truth, but there are some persons in this world who pride themselves on being plain spoken. Men who blurt out disagreeable sayings to your face to wound your feelings, and this they call independence, bridle track. I cannot say whether they pay rates on the Bridle track or not; all that I know is that the Light which is consumed every Monday night in the Council Chambers would go a long way in keeping people on their perpendicular on a dark night in that locality. “nasty dirty little parliaments.” It is pleasing to observe that the good seed sown by Cr Koles during his recent missionary tour in Wellington did not all fall among thorns. The above elegant remark, which is reported to have been made by Mr McGlashan in the Assembly the other night, has the ring of a genuine quotation; so much so that I intended advising old Koles to sue McG. forbreach of copyright, but I noticethat Mac was cunning enough to differ a little from the great master. Koles’s favorite compound epithet was “ nasty, dirty, stinking little,” &c, and applies (and was applied very forcibly) alike to single councillors or whole committees, cart roads or culverts when the old man had the spirit on him. That other phrase regarding guts and brains which is so much in vogue in polite Christchurch society at present isn’t one of Koles’s. The personal application would be too close for him. We can beat Christchurch, Some people down here have neither guts nor brains. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. The Ball.—Yes, the ball was a great success, and the captains did wire in and no mistake. Coroner.—Yes, Cr Graham, you are quite right, there is a great want of a local coroner. When that poor fellow’s hand dropped off as he was being carried to the Morgue, it was high time he should be buried, and yet he had to wait a day for the coroner from Christchurch, and then he came so late that the service over the body had to be read by candlelight, and our worthy doctor was laid up through it. SKETCHES OF NOTORIOUS CHARACTERS. THE LATE BOFFIN. You never noticed him in the street; of course not, nobody ever noticed him, not even when he lampooned them. That ?vas what riled him so much. I have just had glimpses of him, and have a sort of recollection of a figger that remained one cf a third, or perhaps a thirty-third mate, come ashore in the captain’s belltopper. But he’s gone now. E.1.P., which means let him rip. “ He was a man, take him for all in all. We shall not look upon his like again,” if it can be helped. Poor Boffin ! would that I could call you back to life, that I might ask you once again for that half-crown I lent you before I became a Templar. But alas ! Death pays all debts, in which he don’t in the least resemble Boffin. Boffin was a man of tender passions ; his sweetheart’s name was Jane Eva, and he loved her on the square. I don’t think she remains behind to mourn his loss, not much of her, for Boffin left no heel-taps. Perhaps you heard a fellow sing at the Institute something in this style—- ‘ ‘ Bar-room maiden, ere I start, Of what I’ve spent restore a part; You must lend me, I declare, Enough for cab and railway fare ; Or if this you cannot do, I shall have to stay with you. Another drink before I go, On credit, and I’ll love you.” That used to make the most surreptitiously introduced small boy encore him, but this was his masterpiece: “ ’Twas a glorious spread, worth reporter’s telling, But the feed was o’er and the toasts were done, The whiskey he’d swallowed was upward swelling When Boffin remained at the board alone. Then he drained all the bottles and glasses, But found very little therein ; Said he, I’m infernally dry, And the waiter won’t serve me, for why, I’ve got neither credit nor tin.” You heard a fellow sing that, didn’t you ? Well, that was Boffin. You recollect him now. That’s right. 'The fact is, 1 don’t want to commit myself to an exact inventory of his personnel; there are half a-dozen skunks about the place who want people to believe that they are Boffin, and I am too impartial to favour any of them. Boifiu had prominent moral qualities ; you will find the whole list of them in his works, only out of sheer modesty he has attributed them all to better men than himself. Boffin used to be an hon sec. It was all gratuitous work, but he seemed to like it. when any new society opened Boffin went over and annexed it to his hon secretariat. I don’t know what is the remuneration of an hon sec or if it is always got by hon expedients. Boffin isn’t our hon sec now. Time expired, I reckon, pressure of private business, didn’t offer his services, and so on and so on.

I was once at a meeting with an hon sec who had pressure of private business, and the meeting kindly relieved him and went to appoint another. The ex-hon sec recollected then that his business wasn’t near so pressing now as it used to, but the solicitor of the meeting was like an adamant rock, that is, if it was a barefaced rock. (Mind you don’t get muddled between your k’s and g’s when you print that word, or perhaps you may hear more about it.) Boffin was a good Christian. He was always on one committee when charity was required, and ’subscribed himself handsomely. He never courted notoriety by heading the list with jive, like some folks do. Boffin bided his time, and when all the other names were crossed off with the black line of oblivion, then the name and subscription of Boffin became conspicuous, because it was never paid, There is a sort ot superstition attaches to certain people that they never really die. Thus the Wandering Jew and the Flying Dutchman are understood to be knocking around still. Barbarossa awaits the hour of his country’s need under a German forest; Arthur of Britain is supposed to be similarly occupied under the Round Table; and there are some who say that Boffin has been living all the time —on his landlady. I shan’t begin to say he isn’t, perhaps Donald will give us his decision. But Boffin died, and Nicodemus wrote his obituary ; that’s a fact, and the business is carried on now same as ever by a Joint-stock Company, with unlimited Lie-ability, and very little ability of any other sort. It was that week of suspended publication, and the consequent accumulation of bile that killed him. Boffin was a great social reformer, and like other martyrs his biggest achievement cost him his life; the place is sensibly more respectable since he was cleared out of it; but the grand improvement will be when all his admirers have followed him— there’s SEVERAL NOT FAB BEHIND him now. Who was Boffin ? The question has caused as much anxiety, as that |other one who wrote Junius’ letters, in Lyttelton? I can’t give an opinion; indeed, those most concerned are not agreed about it themselves ; in proof of which anxious inquirers are referred to the following extract from the new edition of a well-known ancient English poem—l don’t know the author, but Tennyson always told me that when he had finished the Arthurian Romances, he meant to try his hand on the Cock-Robiniad, so I guess that’s the right mark ; Who killed Boffin ? I, said Nicodemus First became famous By killing off Boffin. Who writes Boffin ? I, boasted J y, Having talents to employ, Have license of the Editor’s To ridicule my creditors. ; Yes, I write Boffin, You write Boffin? Haw-haw ! laughed Y . Wal, really that’s cool, Yeou tamal little fool— You write Boffin ! NICODEMUS,