LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 457, 1 December 1875, Page 3

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

{From the Press). The modern system of advertising is a grand one. Whether a genius patents a pill or a paletot, he naturally cracks up his invention through the medium of the public journals. It is, I learn from people who understand such things, money well spent ; but this is a question on which I do not presume to offer an opinion. I don't advertise much myself, but I do like to recognise talent when I see it, and I do so now. I wear paper collars. I bought a box recently. The brand was " The Globe, manufactured expressly for New Zealand." On the back of the box was a map, in which our adopted country was represented as being bigger than either South or North America, both of which continents were in close proximity. If the emigration agents received instructions to distribute a few of these collar boxes to the yeomen of England it might have a good effect on them. In any case, I think the idea is good enough to improve on, particularly if a liberal Government could feel itself in a position to subsidise advertisements of a similar kind.

Talking of immigration, I learn the extraordinary fact that the Himalaya recently brought 419£ immigrants. I hope the fractional passenger wasn't half a bad fellow ; but the commissioner ought to be cautious. It looks bad for New Zealand when we have to import immigrants in pieces. Perhaps the other half of the Himalaya passenger is coming out in the next ship. If so, he won't be the first man who has left his better half behind him.

When I want to know how things are going in New Zealand I learn all I want to know from the pages of the Australasian The New Zealand summary of that paper is quite enough for the liken of rnu, and I can always get a look at it through the medium of a glass of beer contributed by a friend. Ar-d what a comfoit literature is to a man under such circumstances. A few items in the last Australasian summary appear worthy of note. 1 learn that three aristocratic Maoris, including a member of the Legislative Council, were locked up recently for drunkenness and fined. The hon member was very indignant, and commenced to taugi over his humiliation. \t oue time during his incarceration he set fire to his shirt with the intention of destroying himself. I feel glad in the interests of his race that his attempt at cremation was not a success. I feel more glad for his own sake. I feel pleased for this reason, viz, that this honorable Maori stands in for his share of £16,500, members' expenses (for oue session), and I'm sure he must be a gentleman who quite deserves his honorarium. The only thing that surprises me is his having gone in for personal incendiarism on account of hia having been intoxicated. What an awful thing it would be if we were all to follow his example under similar circumstances. Another item of news in reference to the Maori population is to the effect that a wellknown native hanged himself at Taloga Bay. " A womau," the author remarks, " is said to be at the bottom of the affair." In the dearth of events throughout New Zealand one can give a telegraphic agent great credit for forwardiug any suicide, because newspaper readers like these things, but why he should have thought it necessary to inform us that a woman was at the bottom of it I cannot imagine. That was a natural consequence. Had the reverse been the case he might have quoted it as one of those exceptions which prove the rule, and excited a thrillment of wonder in every newspaper reader in New Zealand and Australia.

Dr Earle has been writing to the papers. Aristotle has answered him, and a correspondent of yours seems to have believed that I was Aristotle. I beg in my own defence to quote one paragraph from Aristotle's letter. Here it is:—"lf I understand Dr Earl aright, vital action is the result of the spiral gyrations of the animal spirits in a helical coil around the coecygeal expansions of the pituitary gland after the manner of a perfect fluid syzygy. This I believe to be a fundamental error." Now, 1 feel sure you will guarantee I never iu the course of my existence knew anything about helical coils, coecygeal expansions syzygies. I don't want to. and if any man under five stone two says I do, I'll hit him on the nose, and you have my address; There's a story going the rounds about a Victorian bookmaker offering the odds about the two K's—Kingsborough and Calumny. I heard one lately of a man up North who was booking a bet about a horse called Unknown. He spelt it Unone. The backer of the horse ventured to suggest he had not spelt it quite correctly. '• Oh, of course," was the reply, " I left out the H," and the horse went down Hunone,

Talking of horses, there's a fellow I know here does a good thing at race time. He never pays for a drink. Whenever a r.ice is oyer he rushes up to congratulate the

winner. There's one safe drink then. He goes round condoling with the losers, and he generally picks up one if not two or three sad enough to pay for a sorrowful drink. The races naturally remind one of the agricultural show. Our show is ahead of most, We reckon it so anyhow. Every one goes because, even if your tastes are not bucolic, there are amusements of all kinds, from drinking down to riding on a roundabout. Two reverend gentlemen, new ar rivals I believe, went to the last show. After a look at the sheep and some other stock, they observed a large crowd in one portion of the ground, and thinking there must be interesting exhibits there, they went that way. Before they knew where they were, they found themselves engaged at kiss in the ring. This was rough on them. I believe they fled. Whether they were kissed first I don't know. Should they have undergone osculation, one could imagine this little verse of Mr Tennyson's slightly altered to represent poetically the remarks of those concerned : " I'd come to the show another year, Oh love, for such another kiss, But in case you don't my little dear, Take two more each like this and this." We go in well for education here. I may have observed this ..before. If so, never mind. If we increase our teaching power as we have been doing lately, we shall in a few years have one Professor, forty-five masters, and 210 pupil-teachers to every 300 souls in the community. Our educational force will resemble that of General Bombastes. I do envy the rising generation. I wish I could have such a show in my early days. There's a professor away down South somewhfre, who last term has only had one pupil. The instruction imparted must have reminded both teacher and pupil of Dean Swift's exordium to "Dearly beloved Roger." I think I should like to belong to the Philosophical Society. I expect I could make a philosopher. It has occurred to me frequently that I could train up to it with care. I observe one member has recently read a paper on a new species of butterfly. I am not quite sure that I could have revelled in the subject, unless I had been the discoverer myself. I don't know how a man would feel on finding a new butterfly, but I should prefer finding a new half-crown or an addition to our peal of bells. Either would be equally acceptable. I wonder when the Acclimatisation Society are going to catch the hares in Hagley Park. Lots of outsiders would be glad to purchase them, and at present they are not only doing harm where they are but getting poached, I fancy I might, if sufficient inducement offered, manage with assistance to secure a few. I only mention this fact as a reminder to the society. This paragraph will read rather like a local—a very good pointed interesting scholarly acclimatising local. There's nothing comic about it. Hares in the Park are not comic. They are a depressing delusion, though some of your readers support their families on them. The elections are coming on. There is nothing new about this statement, and to speak the truth there is, so far as we have got very little new about the opinions of the candidates. One might wish by the way there were not quite so many of them, because six columns in each day's paper devoted to the opinions of Bunkem, Squareall, and others, get a little monotonous just a very little you know towards the finish. Up to the present I've learned a little. I have learned from one candidate that all statesmen in modern times have aimed at delegating as mach as possible local Govern ment to the people, and an all wise statesman has proved that this is the only mode by which the conflicting elements could be reconciled. I have also learned that it iR enough for a man to have known your father thirty-five years ago to guarantee that you are a fit and proper person to represent a district In this latter statement 1 am a little struck with wonder, but I should like you to understand that the candidate in question may be a first-class man, in spite of the extraordir ary reasons given by his proposer in his support. I shall learn more as I go on, you may depend I shall. The R. M. Court is always a fair draw foi me. Too fair a draw sometimes. I learn from a recent report of youis that a Good Templar broke his vows through toothache. He has, however, promised to join the society again, and thinks he may not have <he toothache again. I'm not :i Templar, hut when 1 I go for that line, 1 shall reserve to myself the right of a drink when \ ache anywhere, and I'm afraid I shall ache very often.

The fashions are a very interesting topic. The Young Ladies' I happen to know, a very large circulation here, and your home correspondents make long, and I have no doubt, thrilling paragraphs about dress How I wish I could do the same. I find on this occasion that lam short of matt T, and gladly would \ vamp out a few more lines on this important topic. As it stands I can't say much ou fashions. 1 can however express a devout and pious wish that the present mode of wearing the hair may shortly become less pyramidal. It's not fair play on those who, like myself, have as a matter of course, to take a back seat in—let us say. public planes. A woman's glory is her hair, but there's no good in piling up glory too high. Your correspondent, " A Schoolmaster," seems to think thit any book which cannot be used in the elementary schools under the "conscience clause" should, by what he calls " a parity of reason," be excluded from the Public Library. He likewise states that " it is usual in other places to exclude works of a controversial character from the shelves of a library supported by public funds." Does he suppose that men are to be fed with a spoon, or that because some books cannot safely be placed in the hands of ignorant children, they are to be kept from readers who are able to understand them ? He is evidently unaware that public libraries, from the British Museum downwards, contain books of every description ; and that if " works of a controversial character" were excluded, as he states, a great many books on history, theology, and other subjects, about which most people are anxious to inform themselves, would be shut out altogether. It can be no offence to your correspondent to say that the body of gentlemen who regulate the Public Library are likely to be much better judges than he ; and that "by a parity of reason " he would do well to confine his lectures to his young charges, who may possibly be less wise than himself.