LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 406, 30 September 1875, Page 3

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

{From the Press')

“ Here’s sport indeed. ”

Perhaps you think a fellow can’t have any sport here. It all depends on how you go about it. I’ve been in the way of lots of it lately. Take the Football Match for instance. Football is a game I revel in, but I don’t go now beyond superintending it. It’s a grand game for the fleet and stalwart. I’m not in that line now, but it’s a big game. You run and run, by-aud-bye you find yourself in the centre of a skrimmage, some one plants his head in the pit of your stomach, somebody else kicks you on each shin, somebody on the other side gets the ball clear, and then you run about again. After much morerunning you get the ball, and flatter yourself you are going to run with it up to the other goal, you start eyes out, you illude two or three fellows, and just when you think you’re getting on well, some other opponent, about fifteen stone weight, falls upon you. Other fellows fall on him. Every one much excited. So are you. When you recover consciousness you become aware of the fact that the fifteen stone man who has recently fallen upon you has got a touch-down for the other side. While you’re thinking you have had a fair touch-down too, one of your side, probably the fellow who was about the fourth layer on the heap recently piled about your recumbent body, comes up and tells you what a muff you were not to get by with the ball. While you’re altercating with him, the ball comes your way again. You kick it. The ball is stopped in about ten yards by some other fellow, who kicks it smack into your mouth, and then you feel that leather is not good for labial applications, and you sec a well assorted lot of stars mouching about close to your face. Before you feel well round again, the ball (carried by the best runner on the ground, who happens, of course, to be on the other side) passes you. You pursue. You don’t catch him. He kicks a goal, and your side don’t think much of you, and tell you so. You don’t think much of yourself just then. You think still less of yourself next day when you wake up, because you feel as if an amateur with a flail had been trying to thresh out your brains, and had got that tired over the job that he had slapped a deal of flail about your back and legs too. Then your elbows seem wanting to get down into your wrists, and your nose is about the size and shape of a vegetable marrow, and altogether you think football is just the thing for you—to look at.

The Horse Parade is a great institution Here is a fact in connection with that institution. For a fellow like myself that knows nothing ioout that noble animal, its a safe thing to go where you see a big crowd of men round » lior.se and admire the animal. That’s what 'i do. I did so last show. I ask' d a good judge what he thought of a certain crack horse. He said he was a nice animal. He liked his back, quarters, head, and crest, but he had not bone enough, and his feet were very bad. Just as I was storing this up in my mind, another good judge came up. I asked him what he thought of the same horse. After looking him over he said he was the best boned hors.; he had seen on the ground, and hotter feet he had never looki d at but he was very deficient in Ids quarters, weak in the back, and very badly topped, Then I thought I should like to write about horse shows, because people always agree so in their estimates of horses. In reference to horses though, you can enjoy yourself by going to the race course in the mornings to see the horses gallop. In the first place it's the correct thing to do, secondly you will surely learn something of some kind, and thirdly you may perhaps hear the gentle larks and see the pheasants and things your snorting correspondent is always lugging into his communications when he wants to spin them out a bit. I went up with a friend the other day. Wo resolved to be in time, so we started at five. We never, I solemnly declare, saw a pheasant, a hare, or anything gamelike, either going or coming. . We did hear a dozy old lark with the influenza, singing out of tune, and we waited hours before any racers came. At last horses appeared and galloped, and I got that interested that I fell asleep, being weary with much watching. When I was coming back I recollected that I had promised yunr sporting correspondent to bring him a correct account of the work done by each horse. So I interviewed some of the boys scraping horses with iron hoops, and they were most obliging. I learnt from them that Castaway had gone over the hurdles twice round, and that Crazy Jane had broken down, that Clyde had gone a three-mile sweat, and the Tokoraairiro colt had done a serviceable eight-milespinstripped, I workedupabouttwo columns on horses easy. I never met more obliging boys in my life than they were. But never a line has appeared in print yet of my report. I was. only five hours on the course, I shall go again soon. I think I have done a fair thing by the sporting community for one time, not that I am played out, but I don’t care about hanging on to one subject too long, unless it is Hie Abolition of Provinces, i’vc got so used to four columns of that every day that I shall miss it when the Assembly shuts off. Thank goodness, however, we have not done with it yet, not nearly. We shall have shortly a general election, when every candidate will tell us what he thinks on the subject, and then the next session we shall have it all over again. Some people begin to weary on it. By the time it’s settled they will have acquired a taste for the subject, and with regret I leave abolition for the present with one remark, NO FAMILY OUGHT TO BE WITHOUT THE HANSARD OF 1875.

I think advertising is a good thing, but it should be done properly. I have carefully studied the subject, and as MiMaid said of his essay on cats, it is a matter I fancy I have successfully wrestled with. Some day I may give you my valuable opinions on the subject. At present I am prepared to impart them to any Constant Reader enclosing certificate of respectability and thirteen stamps, but this is foreign to what I wish to speak of. A new feature in advertising one’s wishes has lately come under my notice. A friend of mine takes the bag round in a church not many miles from your warehouse. He informs me that parishioners are in the habit of expressing their opinions on church matters through the medium of the collecting bag. It is needless to mention what these opinions are, but it is a fact that they aic nearly always wrapped round our popular provincial coin, a threepenny bit. I can appreciate the artfulness of the dodge, but I could fancy the parishioners who wish to get their wishes followed up, would do well to pay a little more for their postage. Fancy a man making a post office of the collecting bag, a postman of a churchwarden, and expecting to create a revolution in the management of the parish, all for three pence. What a big intellect that man must have. Mr Hoskins has probably the strongest company we have ever had in Christchurch, and I am pleased to see he has been doing good business, but I fancy I’ve got an idea for him which, well carried out, would secure, as the Jvictorious General Bombastes did, “ Mines of wealth.” It is to have evenings devoted to special circles. As thus—- “ Friday next, Grand Fashionable Night. As the management wish to make this performance especially select, no one will be admitted except in evening dress, and the price will be raised to .” What a house there would be, and how much obliged the milliners would be to Mr Hoskins. Again, “ Grand Caledonian Night, ‘Rob Roy’ and ‘ The Bonnie JFisb. Wife ;’ leading Christchurch Caledonian citizen to recite Burns. Grand Hibernian Soiree, ‘ The Peep of Day ’ and * The Irish Tiger.’ The former piece will introduce the patriotic songs—‘The Wearing of the Green’ and ‘ Boyne Water.’ Sticks to bo left at the door. A night of Melodrama, ‘ Desdichado the desperate, or the Demon of the Dratted Dell.’ ” When business begins to slacken, the management would pull it well up by putting on a piece which the papers might designate as not at all correct. This would bring a number of people to the theatre who would otherwise never go near it. I expect I’ve given Mr Hoskins some useful hints, and I know something about theatricals too. I’ve been hissed off the stage twice in minor parts. I’ve never tried leading business. The night before the great Persian Army was scooped, Xerxes, the Shah of the period, is reported to have blubbered a spell on thinking that, in a few years, out of the great crowd he was reviewing, none would be alive. It was sad perhaps. But how much sadder it is to think that of so many nice people that we are in the habit of meeting daily, scores and scores never HAVE A TUB. It’s a fact. I think perhaps if some of us were encouraged a bit we might wash a flittle more. I wonder how many candidates for civic honors have made capital out of the long talked of city baths. I suppose we are spending as much money as we can afford on drainage, but if any Councillor or Councillor.could see their way towards a city bath i would be a good thing, and after a bit would almost pay itself. A public swimming bath would educate some of us into bathing, II would encourage us to wash, say, once a quarter, whether we required it or not.