LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 627, 22 June 1876, Page 3

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

(From the Press.') Perhaps you never read the exports and imports you publish. Very few people do. Exports are not thrilling as a rule. It would puzzle Miss Braddon to raise a thrilling yellow bacsed novel out of exports. It requires a cultivated taste to appreciate the subject, but bearing as it does on the traffic of the country I generally bust gently through your shipping column. I have made a practice of it for years, Hitherto I have only learnt that the Hawea, Albion, or what not have taken away so many bags of flour and so many cases of cheese. But the other day I learned from a list of exports in the pages of one of your contemporaries that the Tui took “5 acres” to the Kaikouras. This indeed looks as if the Canterbury land fund was in danger. There was another presentation made the other day, I wish expressly to state that there was nothing singular about this, because in all the province of Canterbury there scarcely breaths a man with a soul so dead who can with truth even to himself have said, “ I never had a presentation.” This case, however, refers to a reverend gentleman who received a purse of sovereigns from a crowd of devoted parishioners. He was indebted triflingly to a few of the subscribers, and naturally they were a bit free with their donations. They may have expected to get their little accounts squared. 80 they did. They were paid by cheque, and when they presented them the funds were wanting. It would appear that the recipient had never paid in the purse of sovs to his account. He is now on the heaving billow, bound to foreign climes, and still clings to his purse as a sweet souvenir of New Zealand.

I have always thought I should like to bo a civic dignitary. There’s a hunk of respectability about a representative burgees which would be very gratifying to one so fond of it as I am. But there are trials and crosses that even aldermen have to bear. In a township, not many miles from our metropolis, a gentleman was recently elected an M. 8.0. It was an honor his soul has thirsted for for years. Next day a friend who had formerly occupied the same position, called on him. After congratulating him on his election, he said, “ Bill, can you write well ?” Bill was forced, in the interests of tru'h, to confess that his pen was not that of a ready writer. “ There,” said his friend, “ you’re cooked. When I was in the Council they used lo write down every resolution. That’s how they had me, and that’s just where they’ll have you.” I feel sorry for Bill of course, but I must confess that, with the educational facilities afforded at present, one might almost hope that a civic dignitary would be able to write, “Ve don’t expect grammar at the Wick,” said the gallery critic, “ but you might close your flats.” We don’t expect elocution from Borough Councils, but their members ought to be able to write.

Talking of City Councils reminds me that the Cheap Jacks have been under a recent edict shut up. I don’t agree with this. I grieve much over the expatriation of the 0. J. who has recently been selling in Cathedral square. He was the possessor of probably more vulgar patter than any man I have heard yet, but he was amusing, not to say eloquent in his own way ; and I could really point out many very excellent citizens, whose practises might with more justice be put a stop to by the City Council. 1 offer my respectful condolences to the C J. in question, and can only suggest that he should join in partnership with the organ man.

“ An amateur authoress is opened to permanent employment with any magazine or serial. Apply, &c.” The above advertisement recently appeared in the columns of a contemporary of yours. I wish from the bottom of my heart the fair amateur every success but still—l should —I should—recommend her to pause before going in for literature straight out, It’s a poor trade. Such is my experience. It’s impossible to please everyone and difficult enough to satisfy anyone. The difficulty of getting a colonial editor to read beyond the first ten lines of a manuscript is almostincredible. Ihave atpresenttbreereally Standard novels (they do stand on my hands too, I assure you), two dramas, 143 serial stories, and 1999 poems. Some of them I offered to the editor of this paper, but he returned me the Staggering Sinner or the Soaking Sexegenarian, dedicated to the G.M. and 1.0.G.T., with the remark that even if any editor could be found fool enough to publish such drivelling idiocy, not one member of a reading public could be found generous enough to read over twenty lines. He made similar remarks about what I considered other really charming productions; such things discourage an amateur. I’ve given up novel writing and poetry, and wore la lady (which ot course I can never in my position hope to be) I should run a bar, a sewing machine, go into service (where really good times are to be found), anything sooner than write books. Solomon himself, you may remember, found nothing in it. There is an office here where gentlemen who are fortunate enough to obtain appointments of trust can find the necessary security, I have never gone in for this sort of thing myself. It would probably require all the available capital of the company to secure me. A man who recently was buying into a business here was rather short of cash, and had to purchase a large amount of goods on bills. He wanted a second name, and having heard of the existence of the office in question, betook himself to the agent, and requested him to guarantee the sura total of the bills. Strange to say no deal was effected.

Diamonds are supposed to cut diamonds. Here is a case in point, A short time since in a country township, the bai.iff of the district was met ,by the local collector of educational rates, mounted, booted, and spurred. The educationalist served the official representative of the majesty of the law with a notice to pay his rate. The bailiff blandly accepted the notice, wailed till he saw the collector dismount from his

steed, and then, producing a warrant from his pocket, seized the horse, saddle, and gear. Then that collector had to finish h!s circuit on foot, and delivered himself, I believe, of seme silent solemn solid Saxon sentences. I have been engaged recently in a cultivation of the Bankruptcy Act. It’s a cruel Act, There’s no use in being a debtor now. Debtors have no protection. There was a time when “ the Court” was a garden of Bendermeer to any business man. Alas! those times are o’er. An Act which condemns a too provident or even a too improvident debtor to remain with a Damoclean (I say bully for Damoclean, eh ?) sword hanging over his head is an Act unfitted for an advanced state of civilisation. As little Nipper says, the only course for a fellow to pursue now is to live on the interest of his debts; There’s a new dodge for raising the needful, which I want to tell you about. A man advertises “ bottles of scent, price one shilling, with something else in the wrapper.” A friend of mine on purchasing a bottle found enclosed a new farthing. Another fellow was surprised—very much surprised—at finding a half sovereign, and another whose impecuniosity is notorious, borrowed the necessary robert, purchased a bottle of scent, and in the wrapper found a real five pound note. The above facts arc confirmed truths, but unfortunately the scent as above is not sold here. It happened in England. “ The natives of Natewa Bay have renounced Christianity. A priest induced one hundred to go into a hut while they set fire to it, and guaranteed that their power would prevent them being burnt. Many were severely burnt, and two or three fatally.” Plenty of unsophisticated savages would have turned it up under the circumstances. At least I should think so ; but they may have styles of missionarising in Fiji that we in New Zealand cannot judge of.