LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 527, 25 February 1876, Page 2

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

(Jtrom the Press ) “ Are things what they seem Or is visions about; Is our education a failure Or is our system played out ? ’ No, I don’t think it is. We are getting more high toned a bit, but in some respects our educational style is much the same as it was some years since. It is still possible for indignant parents to make it lively for the master. Here is a letter which I got hold of somehow, written by a parient to the dominie who has the honor of teaching his children. I suppress names of course, but in other respects the following letter is an exact copy of the original. “ Dear Sir—While lookin hover the book that you have given ey see that it is far behond what she is abel to lern ; ey should think that aney man with comen sens whould not ave given a child like her a book gust the same as the first class girls bis at Christchurch school; big girls three times her age, but ey am of the same apinian as the inspector, that is, that the school as gon to the dogs, and you are not fit to teach it j if you have not got aney thing diferant to

that to teacher her, ey must send her whear she can lern sum thing hels, so you can take thftt back for ey shall not pay for that. , ;• - , t‘Ey remain “Yours * If I were a schoolmaster, the writer of the "above would be just the class of man I should like for chairman of my committee. His letter is so courteous, and every line of it shows not only an appreciation of the teacher’s efforts but the cultivation of a finished English scholar, and one who would be able to form a really good opinion of the work his girls were doing. lam happy to say that we possess many a dozen like him. Arid yet such men ain’t properly appreciated by the schoolmasters. At a meeting of the Benevolent Institution (Dunedin) the president is recently reported to have said that pertinacious demands were made by the Cork workhouse women immigrants. They threw themselves on the Institution, being accustomed to charity at home. In the face of so many immigrants arriving, so to speak, daily on our shores, it behoves us to provide suitable accommodation for them. I expect we must erect a workhouse. We may not be lucky enough to secure, like cur Dunedin friends, a draft from the Cork workhouse, but there’s nothing like being prepared. Meantime, I should respectfully suggest to Mr Callender that, should any able-bodied clients from Cork or any other workhouse apply to him for their “ accustomed charity,” he should billet them along with the graven images in the Maori house, or else detain them in quarantine till they agreed to sail for some colony where they keep well-organised workhouses. We ought to have one ourselves though. There’s no use in being behind the age, and such an institution would be a great success here. We have even now lots of people quite accustomed to receive charity. A man can’t be too particular in giving his evidence before a Court of Justice. I lost a friend a big case once through admitting after a close and long cross-examination thot we both liked beans. He has never spok'n to me since. A medical gentleman recently is reported to have given the following evidence in an assault case : —“ He dressed the wounds. The largest one was dangerous. Unless medical assistance had called in the first wound was not in itself dangerous." I don’t care about drawing any inference from this statement because inferences are often unreliable, but had I been a doctor giving evidence on such a case, I should have put it through in quite a different style. “ The Person who left a Towel under my Plum Trees on Saturday last may hear of something to his advantage by applying to “B. W. Ferguson, “Jones street, Kaiapoi.” The above notice appeared in the advertising columns of your Northern contemporary. There are a few things in connection with it I should be glad to learn. I should like to know what the person wanted wiping plums on Ferguson’s plum tree, and why he left his towel behind him, I should like to know if he got wiped down himself, or got a liberal reward from Ferguson for his kind attention. I like to learn about horticulture. I’ve come across plums myself in a promiscuous manner, but never in connection with towels. For this reason I hope the Plumtoweller will apply to Ferguson, and that Ferguson will tell us what advantage it was to him; There’s a pedagogue about who has a good style of teaching. It’s a kind of hurried style. He asks a question, and whacks the clasr round till he gets the right answer. It’s hard work for him, and he loses weight, but he will hang on to this impartial way of imparting things, and don’t care what money he spends on canes. He was punching English History recently into a hardened set of boys, and his question oft-repeated was, “Who killed William Rufus ? ” It came rough on three parts of the class, but a little boy who was putting in his first day saved the rest. He fell down in a perspiring fear, and said in tones of unfeigned emotion, “Oh 1 Please sir, I didn’t sir ! I was tailing father’s cattle sir, all day yesterday sir 1 ” The alibi was satisfactory.

A gentleman advertises a desirable section of land, which, among other good properties, has the boon of being “ fenced on three sides with respectable neighbours.” I should judge now that fence was a most expensive one to keep up. Not that respectable people are particularly scarce here. I never was in a town that possesses so much solid respectability as this. There’s more principle attached to Christchurch than to any other city I have visited in any part of the world. But it comes expensive, and it don’t suit every one. Respectability can’t be done here much under £SOO a year, and a man don’t' feel sure of himself even then. Any how he can’t save much. But its nice I’m sure, I know lots of people who think bo, and who are quite capable and fit of being posts in the fence of the above advertiser, but they would want to make money out of it. You bet they would. There is again a talk of building a new theatre. You may have heard this matter spoken of before. It has hitherto fallen through. Things often do fall through here. People go to the theatre, growl at the accommodation, and say its a perfect disgrace to a metropolis like this, which in point of fact it is, but they don’t support any movement towards getting a new one. If a score or two of the regular attendants in the dress circle would take a few shares each, the company would float. I’m not prepared to say the investment would pay cent, per cent, but it would pay them indirectly. But I doubt it will take a long time to persuade people of this. Speculation is not our forte, except on certainties.

It appears there are some hundred able bodied miners about the Thames wanting work. Micawber like they are waiting for something to turn up, and want a little assistance till it does. The Thames field was a good thing once, and I am quite willing to believe that it may become an Ophir once more, but I expect it would be better for the unemployed miners to try other fields until the long expected discoveries do eventuate. I’m afraid we could scarcely do with the whole lot of miners, but should the Government decide upon supporting them we might work an exchange. , .We might send up the Brusher and a few more like him, and Dunedin would probably, with a few pangs, spare some of the workhouse ladies in exchange for a few miners. There’s nothing like a good deal. At present the Thames wants a good deal too much. I have no hesitation in saying, and like Mr. Mark Meddle in London Assurance, I say it boldly, that the main feature of a boarding house is the cruet. We are all—when I gay we, I mean the likes of me—familiar with the inebriated looking pepper

pot, the seedy swell vinegar bottle which, like the widow’s cruse, always seems to keep about the same level, and which new comers in their innocence often take for Worcester, and the mustard pot which two defunct coagulated flics alone keep from insolvency. All three representatives lean different ways, and remind one of Christchurch Christians. I have been proud of our cruet. It was not useful. It was and is still a ruinous fraud; but until Jane, the new girl, broke it, there was a halo of antiquity and German silver respectability about it, which went far towards fetching our boarders. The mustard pot, as I said, was recently shattered. Jane could account for it in no other way than that she supposed she mixed the mustard that strong that it burst the glass. Such is Jane’s account on my solemn word, and she’s got the sack. It is not a question of belief or unbelief. It is a question of science. If Professor Bickerton would give us his opinion about the bursting powers of mustard in regard of cruet pots, harmony, Jane, mustard, and flies might resume their respective positions in our household.