LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 598, 19 May 1876, Page 3

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

(Itrom the Press.) Industry is a very fine thing. It is one of the finest things of which we have any knowledge. It doesn't agree with me. I'm happiest when I'm idle. I could live for months without performing any kind of labor, and at the expiration of that time I should feel fresh and vigorous enough to go right on in the same way for numerous more months. The above remarks are not original on my part. But they fit me like a pint of ale. Even my talent cau fetch no apter hyperbole. I have not written to you lately. I have been engaged in gunning. I have been successful, and I will here remark that birds have been left at various times for all the members of the Press office. That they have not arrived is not my fault. I am aware the intelligent boy at the office bar has been blamed for their non-arrival. The fault has not been his. The facts are as under. I left the same pair of ducks daily for each member of the staff and took them back when the boy's back was turned. I finally sold them for 4s to a speculative old orphan who came round growling about the non-delivery of his paper. I expect those birds gave him no trouble in carriage. They would nearly have walked home by themselves. They were high old ducks you bet. I hope the above explanation will prove satisfactory to all concerned. Some people run New Zealand down in the matter of game. I have heard men state there is no game here. It is a falsehood. Men who state this, lie. This is painful to think about. It is still more painful to think how men lie about the game they don't shoot. I reckon there are more lies told at this season than at any other. I have had a various lot of shoots. I shot on the first of April. I went away wish Atlas, a friend of mine, in the dark. We drove some miles and miles, and swam a creek (in the buggy), and shot a duck. When I say we, I mean Atlas did, and I missed another, and then we came home. 1 don't care about bags like this. I like them massiver. I got a fortnight's rheumatism after this. The old man is taken a bit that way sometimes. I decided then I ought to try pheasants. It looks well to see your name in the papers as a pheasantshootist. It's nearly equal to a £lO donation to a charity. It looks as if money was no object to you. I may here remark, not to deceive people who take an interest in me, that a trustful friend paid my license for me. I have not yet made up my mind whether to be grateful to him or not. Anyhow, on the Ist May, I went after the wily pheasant. Ked Tutts, who is a shootist of the first order, went with me. He has a sporting dog j who can do anything but speak. He would J be worth 100 guineas in England. He came I very near beiDg worth nothing at all here [ about five minutes after I made his acquaintance. His name is Snipe. I was getting out of the buggy when my borrowed breech • loader went off, and sent three ounces of shot (Manning's best) between Ked and the dog Snipe. I told Ked I was unaccustomed to breechloaders, and then he told me his life was not insured, and we proceeded. I don't know if you like walking in swamp«. and bounding over nigger heads, but it's exciting. I soon stopped. I halted in the middle o? a fifteen foot ditch. The others negotiated it successfully. I landed in the middle. The boys laughed, and being wet through 1 came home, and thought what a heartless world this is. I had a bit more rheumatism after this, and received three threatening letters from Bang >,rs and four from indignant farmers, over whene land I was supposed to have trespassed, Shooting is good fun, you

can say what you like. Several days I had reclined amid the throes and twiogements of rheumatism, when I begax to study the St Michael's case. I read about the vestry offering the incumbent £2OO to clear out, and of the incumbent's refusal to accep'. £2OO. I couldn't maky up my mind which of the two parties concerned was the greater—was ttie most—well, showed the greatest amount of disinterestedness. ] went very near lnnacy thinking ov>r it, and then as the season was ruuuiug on J went away to the Rakaia. TalkiDg cf the 6outh line reminds me of an act of gallantry recently performed there, which is worthy of note. A train in New Zealand was whirling along in its usual express waggon style when Boreas or some other swab of (Eolus (I can be classical sometimes) blew a lady's hat off. The lady sprang off the train, and was re turning at what a sporting reporter would call a serviceable canter, when a gentleman who had been looking on felt his hat also fly off his head. With real gallantry he jumped off the cars at the risk of his—boots and ran to rescue the lady and his own hat. The engine driver seeing the imminent peril of all concerned, stopped the train, and the daiing lady and gentleman returned none the worse for their perilous adventure. The foregoing is a fact. Arrived at the Rakaia station I went on per buggy with the Chief to Hlackford. We had a grand retriever with U 9. One I borrowed. He could retrieve chops better than any quadruped I ever met. A most serviceable dog. I reckon he farmed more fleas than there are sheep in New Zealand. There are some thousands skipping about the chief's buggy even unto this day, and he can't get a clean muster of them. In regard to the dog, one little anecdote will tell you what he was. We were shooting the lagoon at Blackford, a piece of which it may truly be said " Facilis descensus, sed revocare gradum, that's the job." I can't help these quotations. When I get on classics you can't stop me. I shouldn't be surprised if I use up half your fount of Greek type before this article is through yet. The dog I speak of behaved admirably during the descent to the lagoon (about 2000fi) He retrieved a choice merino ram of Mr Coster's in a style I've seldom seen equalled. It's curious how the instinct of the breed will come out. Mr Coster thinks so still. When we got to the la<?oo:i by some accident I wnuoded a teal. Buffon, the great naturalist, has tru'y observed that a wounded teal in his ways closely resembles a ficra in a Wellington boot. Buffon is right. Tlny'reboth artful—very artful. I heard a dog among the reeds hunting, and was surprised to find that the dog was not mine. I looked round, and saw my retriever fast asleep under a tussock behind me. A better trainel dog it would be hard to find, and he wears three stove in ribs to this hour. We had decided to go up the Rakaia for some miles, and strike the head of the Ashburton, follow it down, and shoot blue duck. 1 had looked forward to this trip for years with pleasure. I look back to it with pleasure. We walked ten miles up the Rakaia, and then up a creek, and up a mountain. What a day we had. The gibbering chump who carried a banner and kept Biuging Excelsior, would have got euchred if he had been with us, We walked what was facetiously sup posed to be sixteen miles. I'll swear it was thirty, and if you doubt me go and try it. We camped in a whare and were very jolly, aud next day we followed the river down from its source. The river was rising, and naturally it got deeper and deeper. We crossed it about 120 times. Wj got wet. It grew monotonous. I disturbed the monotony, I uot washed away. I was as graceful an old float as you ever saw. 1 expect I should have got pulped up a bit only Mr Coster and the Chief hauled me out. Wading is not my form. I lost my gun in this immerse. If lies about fifteen miles, more or less, from Pudding Hill, covered up with about two feet of silt. Look here, I respect you ; you can have that gun. I don't seem to have any further use for it, and it don't belong to me. I came near forgetting to mention the two Rakaia Paradise ducks are no longer on hand. The Chief killed one, and the Rakaia sportsmen seems to have lost interest in shooting now. They hope, however, for better things next year. I had a bit more rheumatism when I returned, but the true sportsman is never beaten, so I went again with Atlas and Tutts. A pheasant is a fair sized biped, but when he wtnrrhs away down with the wind you'd be surprised how hard he is to hit. I think I have fired about 250 rounds of cartridge at these gaudy birds, and I've only killed one at fifteen yards' sitting, and his body is not worth much. Tutts says 1 needn't trouble myself about sparing the hens, he says any one who shoots an hour with me would never suspect me of breaking the Game Act in this or any other respect. He thinks I may make a shot when I m about seventy years of age if I live as long and keep steady. Atlas says I'm a fool to shoot at all. My rheumatism is comingon again. I've got half agorsebedgein different parts of his body, and a bad cold. The man who paid for my license has just called to say that he feels hurt I havn't sent him ar.y pheasants yet. He seems to have lost confidence in me. I shall go out again when I'm better. You can't beat shooting as a real sport, and the following lines, which perhaps you may have heard before, seem to (it in here. They suit me—and —lots more of your readers : " Mony a weary cast I made, To cuittle the pheasant's tail. If up a bonny old cock should spring, To whistle him down wi' a slug in his wing, And strap him on to my lunzie-string, Right— often would I fail."