LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 471, 18 December 1875, Page 3

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

(From the Press).

The candidates are at it everywhere, Figaro is here to-night and there to-morrow night, and really the speakers have no cause to complain of the treatment they receive from the public journals. A statistician, a personal friend of mine, has reckoned that if the space they have lately devoted to politics was measured and laid dowu in grass, they would make a run capable of keeping 10,000 sheep. This fact seems interesting. I like the speeches ; but some of them are perhaps susceptible of a little boiling down. The following telegram is my idea of a general report of a candidate’s speech :—“ Wi Maihi te Rangikaheke addressed the electors last night He made a good speech, and was patiently listened to. He stated that much money was unnecessarily spent in presents to natives, but that Sir D. McLean’s policy was generally very good. He thought Sir George Grey was behind the age and too old. He stated that if returned he could induce the natives to open up the country. He received a vote of thanks.” This is the whole report. Wi Maihi-te What-do-you-call him gives his views of the native question, upon which it is to be presumed he is more or less of an authority. He praises his friend and has a drive at Sir George, who it may be supposed is opposed to him in politics, and sums up by telling the free and independent electors what he’ll do for them if elected. Anyone can see his line, and what more do we want ? Why, your readers want quantity, and they get it. I reckon in three years from this the local papers will be giving a candidate for a country Road Board twelve columns for his speech, and a reporter will not be thought up to the mark unless he gives eight solid descriptive columns of a fifth rate muffin wrestle.

I have not heard much lately of the noble Maori. This has disappointed me. Considering what we pay towards keeping his calumet alight, we have a right to expect a sensational telegram, say once in a fortnight, about him just to say whether he be talking, pursuing on a journey, or planting potatoes. From recent telegrams I learn a bit about him. I learn that the Maoiieshave their little discrepancies just thesarae as we have. As thus— At Gisborne on December 3rd a grea Ka--kaukai commenced. Native presents changed hands to the value of over five thousand pounds. Feasting and drinking will last till all the grog is consumed. About one thousand Maoris and five hundred Europeans present. That’s what was doing at Gisborne. At Hikarangi on December 7th the following was the state of affairs : “No business of importance here as yet. All are engaged learning the hymns of the new religion. Singing is going on morning, noon, and night. The settlement is not so large as ex pected, consisting of only three large whares and several small ones. The visitors are accommodated with break winds ” Gisborne appears to have been the biggest draw. The feasting, drinking, and gift distribution appears to have fetched a bigger audience than the hymns of the new religion at Hikarangi I’ve known Europeans almost the same sometimes. On other occasions they go in for a new religion, as for instance at Kaiapoi, where the churcb has been more militant than—than—well more so than is perhaps advisable. Don’t think for one moment that I’m going to express an opinion on the merits of the case, I trust I know myself too well. From what I see of the evidence i feel sure I should find any Kaiapoi Christian ever so much too heavy metal for me. 1 only wish to observe that there is a record in a certain book, which is not so popular now as it used to be, of two men, Paul and Barnabas, having a very sharp contention, but the account of the quarrel is not nearly so voluminous as that of the Kaiapoi dispute, and I have heard a saying credited to a man called Napoleon Buonaparte about washing one’s linen in public, which seems almost to apply to the Kaiapoi enquiry. “Wanted, a gentleman lodger or tw; (friends) in a private family. Bank o; mercantile gentlemen only taken. Fot terms, apply, &c.” The above is an advertisement which lately appeared. It seems a little original, but without wishing to detract from the evident talent of the advertiser, I wish humbly to point out one or two facts in connection with it which may perhaps have been worthy of his attention. In the first place, he might have saved money by omitting the word gentleman. Every one in Canterbury is a gentleman. I solemnly swear that I never yet met a man who would not admit that he was a gentleman, if pressed to do so. Next, the allusion to the two (friends) is a little dangerous, for the simple reason that two friends in a privatefamily always quarrel and are friends no longer, besides, friendship has gone out so much that the De Amicitia reads like Artemas Ward just now, only its rather more funny. Lastly, why only bankers and mercantile men should be accepted seems a little rough on some people. Why leave a poor but. honest Government official out in the cold ? Why not draw a portion of a clergyman’s salary, or a lawyer’s hard earned pittance, and what is there against even a low fellow like myself that writes for the papers ? The advertisement made me feel like a toad under a harrow. My landlady has been slinging it at me ever since,

The English mail brought a lot of news. Two or three of the telegrams have struck me as—as buzzling with interest. At Munich a royal decree has introduced compulsoiy civil marriages. I expect this means that a civil fellow must get married. It’s a good law. It would be popular here. Any candidate makingcompulsory marriage his especial platform would get immense support. I should like it myself perhaps, but there would be a little difficulty about claiming particular affinities. My affinity would object to me and claim the other fellow. I know this from her manner. I shall write to the Emperor at Munich, though, and learn how he thinks it would work here in conjunction with large loans and high class education. “ Toronto is in the hands of a gang of ruffians who are committing depredations in every direction.” I could name three of our police force here who could stop that telegram from ever appearing again. “ The ‘Beecher scandal is dead at last.” This is the first scandal on record that ever died. I expect, as many excellent people remark on their escutcheons, it will rise again. •‘ The hog cholera is taking off thousands of pigs in Indiana.” I’m sorry for this, because bacon will rise here owing to that telegram, and it’s high enough now. “ Turkey wants more money.” I expect she does. So do I. I should be a goose if I didn’t. Look here, I can’t keep scintillating out too much epigram at one time, Let us be serious; let me call your attention to the fact that you have not treated Mr Jebson fairly. His letters may be, as you observe, had'y written and badly spelt, but I’ve known plenty of men that can tower over such trifles as that, and who can be as weighty on a school committee as Mr .1. is on the shortcomings of the Board of Education, I can’t quite see what Mr Jebson means in the sentence where he complains of the delay in publishing his letter, “ because time has been allowed for the poison to work contained in your leader of Friday last (which he had not seen until this morning), your leader in Weekly Press on Saturday last, my reply to same which you have suppressed, and your editorial of Saturday last, the reply to which you have held over to dissect, mangle, and pervert in your leader of to-day.” I say advisedly I can’t quite make the paragraph come out to my liking. The poison is too mixed. Between ourselves if you had dissected and mangled it a little more its meaning would have been perhaps more easily grasped, but I trust you won’t suppress any more of Mr J’s letters, because every line in the one from which I have quoted, distinctly shows that the writer would naturally have a distaste for a Board of Education, and his avowal that he *• cannot allow himself to be allured from his position by your speciousness,” certainly leads me to believe that he is one of those coming men who he avers will (?) expose incapacity. There are going to be some big crops this year. I hear people say so. I think it right you should know it, because then you can localise the fact. Your readers doubt me, I’m sorry to say, sometimes, but servants are scarce. A friend of mine went searching the other day, and at one of the depots he heard of one he thought would suit. He went in to interview her with that obsequious, not to say superlatively, humble manner which it is necessary here for anyone to adopt under such circumstances, and to quote Mr Tennyson—,f There rose a nurse of ninety years.”

At least it came close to it. There rose a lady of seventy. He left after a short interview. He says the years of man may be three score and ten, but it’s getting late on in life for a woman to expect the wages of a general servant, I’m rather of his opinion. I could love a nurse of ninety years, but a housemaid of seventy would fail to excite any interest in me at all. When I learn a bit more about writing I shall sling some ink on servants.

I observe the Good Templars have objected to the sale of liquors on the cricket ground Without wishing to say anything against the order. 1 think this was rather a mistake. I assert that a man is none the worse for a glass of beer—or three if it comes to that—who is playing cricket all the afternoon. You see, on the principle that you ran take a horse to the water without being able to make him drink, any Templar can play cncket without drinking ; but why try and make a man—not sober, but pitiably drouthy —by Act of Parliament ? I °hould never personally think of pressing a Templar to drink against his wish, and thus so long as I don’t interfere with him, why should he stop me drinking a a modest glass of beer. I can understand and appreciate the efforts of the society to stop drunkenness ; but why in a world like t his endeavour to make sober people n< cessarily appear drinkis's? I drink—when I'm

asked. I take rather an interest in it sometimes, and 1 might with equal reason say on the occasion of a Templar pic-nic, these people ought to drink, if onlj on patriotic grounds, to support the revenue of the country. Patriotism and P. B. against Tea and Templars. And each can, however strange it may seem, be a very material assistance to the other without clashing. That’s my idea.