LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 642, 10 July 1876, Page 3

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

{From the Press ) I want to have a few word? about the Financial Statement. It would appear that we owe £19,543,191, the annual charge on which is £1,035,164. We have not yet got a million taxpayers, consequently I, as a unit, have got to pay over £1 a year. I have also the education £1 rate. It has occurred to me that I can't afford living here much longer. I here is too ranch regard shown by Government for posterity. I never cared about posterity. I don't expect they will do much for me, and I don't sec why I should work for them. I want to give you some well-digested views of mine on the Financial Statement, but meantime I must tell you about Smaitly's investment. It'll kind of brisk one up for financial penrneuts. Smartly is just about as cute a business man as knocks around. This is saying a good deal. We have some men here who could—well I don't quite know what they could not do. Smartly can take care of himself even in the best of company, but his last investment waß a bit risky. He was sitting with the most innocent of squatters and remarking what beautiful land there was about. I reckon the land hereabouts, said Smartly, is worth at least eight pounds an acre. The innocent squatter said he thought it was fair, but liee a fool he'd bought a twenty-acre section away from the rest of hia propeity, which he would be glad to sell at cost price. Smartly—always open to a deal—at once offered him 355, and the deal was made. The section in question ia situate far among the mouutain summits near Mount Cook, where eternal snow squats upon the barren rock. Smartly is not so well pleased over the df al as the innocent squatter, but he is too good a man to be much riled, and paid bis money without moving a muscle, and 'm open to take the shortest of odds he makes money out of the investment before the year's out. In theory Sir Julius observes (I'm goiug on with the financial statement again) paying interest out of capital whilst works are in course of construction 13 sound, and for private enterprise may be reasonable enough. There's a rnau I know who nctn up to°tbia. He borrows some " stock "~I believe that is the right name for it—and makes soup. He has a feed himself to start with. Thus of course breaking into his borrowed capital. He sells the rest. But here the genius of the man comes in. Ha walks round with a equirt hanging round his waist, and when he hands you the soup he observes, " Thruppence." Such is his invariable remark. If you don't produce your coir he draws the soup all up with the squirt and sends it back into the pot. Under these circumstances, you had better go away and see a friend as soon as possible. One of the most prominent features in the financial Statement is constitutional changes, and this reminda mc of an account I read recently id your admirable journal of a little girl who was walking backwards on a railway nlatf o'm in New South Wales, when she suddenly slipped on to the line. She was struck by the firebox of the engine and thrown a distance of forty yards. She was, strange to say, rendered insensible. I've thought about (his a good bit, and I've come to the con.

1 elusion that I believe the poor girl would be perhaps likely to be rendered insensible after being thrown forty yards. She is getting better I'm glad to see, and I should not have mentiorei the circumstance only it's one of the most remarkable constitutional changes of which we have any record. We shan't get on much with the statement if I don'o watch myself. I am a bit discursive sometimes, bat I take leave here to remark that the paragraph about Local Bodies I don't in the least understand. You can utilise a Local Body though, by means of photography. Why there are people I expect would buy a group of all the members of yonr staff and sell them at a half-penny profit the gross, as a nucleus for a New Zealand Chamber of Horrors. I like to recognise art even when it appears in the shape of an advertisement. I flatten my nose against a shop window, and behold a professional in one of hif? or her favorite parts, and then I know what is best to go and see them in. It's a bit deceiving though is photography. A lady who would give you a bob in the eye with a fork at a minute's notice appears in her photo a motherly old dear ; the woman who would smilingly send you headlong to—to—the society of a very popular gentleman—smiles at you like an angel of light. The man who would rob a church plate of a brass button glows out like a philanthropist. Its a great art, and Bome day will almost cut out advertising. We now come to the general position of New Zealand credit. I observe with pain that in some respects it clo3ely resembles my own. It has suffered, says the Treasurer, partly from detraction. So has mine. I can truly say that lots of men who have in times of dire need and necessity, loaned the old man a friendly shilling, have made remarks about my failing memory which are far too painful to repeat. The colony, like myself, has borrowed largely, and apropos of this the Treasurer observes, " That it's impossible to secure for the public dabt of a colony like New Zealand, an accurate consideration of its true nature." How true this is, and how these words come home to the heart of a consistent borrower. People, ejaculates plaintively the Treasurer, will not pause to analyse. And they won't. I wish they would sometimes, because then possibly they might not mistake cause for effect, or vice versa. A reverend gentleman, ■who is really an eloquent man, has been lecturing recently on " Chinks in our Social System." I'm Borry I was unable to hear the lecture, because I can always hear the gentleman in question with pleasure; but in this case he is a bit hard on the turf. At least I judge so from the precis of the lecture given in the pages of your contemporary. The lecturer, I see, gave six different reasons for condemning the turf as an institution. I could give sixteen if called npou to do so, but then so I could against many other things which I believe are usually looked upon as harmless. Some day I mean to follow the example of old Nicholas and wiite an esuay on the morality of the turf. Mc-antimo, although I don't quite agree with our veteran turfite when he declares it to be " the most honcsteot thing as is," I cannot believe it bo terribly bad as the revcreud lecturer asaeits, Ho looks to the ladies hero to stem this tide of evil influence, He believes the influence of gentle, loving, winning woman to be very powerful, and suggeststhatthc gentle, loving, &c should decide that it be no 4 ; deemed respectable to appear on the racecourse. If the ladie3 do this lovingly, firmly, and persistently, we may check this evil. As Mr A. Ward would say, " This is too mutch, a Bight too mutch." There's a member of the Jockey Club I know who wants to get married, and what kind of a show wili be have with any gentle, loving, woman who lovingly and persistently looks upon the racecourse as a haunt of vice. I'm sorry for the C.J.C. The reverend lecturer might lecture with more advantage on " The Chunks in our Social System." We have many—oh, so many—Chunks about. Let me return to the Financial Statement. I am proud to see that Education will be well cared for. I fancy some people want educating a bit, especially in music. I don't allude to the blatant Buffkins who always thinks it correct to talk aloud when a particularly nice Bong is being sung in the Music Hall, nor do I mean old fepludge, whose daughter has been trying to learn music fcr eight years, and who says he might as well have chucked his money behind the fire; but I'm thinking of that poor man at the Cust who got serenaded the other night. The band consisted of concertinas, kerosene tins, teapots, ploughshares, &c, and the evidence goes to show eveiyone in the place was delighted with it, even the cattle and horses, it appears, danced to it. The only being who objected was the man whom the musicians delighted to honor. Apparently dull to the concord of sweet sounds, he summoned the band, and forty-eight hours was the result. On their return, the musicians were entertained at a public dinner. They do things properly at the Cust. There's some pleaauro in being a musical martyr up there. I see that immigration is going to be slackened off a bit. I'm sorry for this, becauao otherwise I should have suggested importing the writer of the following advertisement, which appears in a Victorian paper :- "An educated well built Englishman, who has been a great traveller, having a tolerable livelihood and means, would be happy to correspond with a respectable female about forty (object matrimony). She must be good tempered, and possessed of property or cash. A widow would not.bs objected to if without encumbrance."

I should like to import the advertiser, because he would, I'm sure, be an acquisition to the province, and we have a few very respectable females about forty who, if not married, might possibly like to be. And talking of immigrants, I expect we shall have a lot up soou from the South. It would appear that people in Dunedin have to prove themselves respectable if called upon so to do by their Queen and country. I'm not the least afraid of anything of the kind taking place here, though to speak truly there are some sweet vagrants in this town I could part from without a sob. Were the law to bo carried out impartially here, I tremble to think how many nice respectable people would get in for it. I don't mean among the publicans and sinners, but among the Pharisees and Sadducees. This, however, is not finance. 1 have not fully made up my mind on this great question yet, further than to hope that the Government will cling steadily to those vast principles of borrowing which properly cfirried out will make us a great nation. I don't say even Sir Julius grasps these principles better than I do, but as Stuart Mill or Artemus Ward says, every nation should live within its means, even if it borrow mosey to do it with.