LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1344, 5 June 1878, Page 3

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

[from the press.] In the last number of the “Saturday Advertiser,” a paper which I peruse with much pleasure every week, I came across a very spirited and well-written poem by my friend Mr Thomas Bracken. But excuse me —what should we do without huts? —I must disagree with T. B. about the sentiment contained in the last verse. Here it is : Where are the walls of Sparta ?—Advance our Yeomen! lio ! See ! see they rush to guard the land all ready for the foe ! No Helots here, the Freeman’s seal is stamp’d on every face, These are the trusty guardians of the honour of our race ! Should savage slaves assail us; to trowel, plough, and pen, We’ll bid adieu, for rifles true, and Spartan walls again. Advance our Yeomen! Not an advance would any of our yeomen make, and as to “rushing to guard the land,” they’d rush off to the wilderness of Kaiapoi. If any foe did come around I’ll tell you what would happen under present circumstances. There would bo a meeting of the leading citizens of Christchurch, a meeting which would bo exceptionally unanimous in agreeing to part for the enemy, and then our defence would be finished until—the next privateer arrived, and then, if Mr Bracken will forgive my transposing a few words in his last line, we should once more

“ Bid adieu to rifles true, and clear out once again,” One of the most cruel cases of adding insult to injury came under my notice recently. A member of the present Government has been orating several columns of post-sessional utterances, and fearing lest the paper containing his speech would not reach his friends at a distance, he got it printed and sent a copy to every member of the House. One of our leading Canterbury politicians on receiving the speech is said to have delivered himself to the effect that it was hard enough to have to read the speech, but it seemed like rubbing it in a bit too thick to have to pay 2d postage for the printed enunciation of views which were in every respect diametrically opposed to his own. He means moving a resolution when the House meets to the effect that members who intend casting their oratory abroad through the post must pay postage at double rates in advance.

When a man, taking advantage of the marriage of his daughter or the decease of his grandfather, advertises to the world at largo that his uncle was lieutenant in the militia or that his great grandmother was second cousin to the Lord Macackyack, it may occur to us, as Mr Middlcwick observes in “ Our Boys,” that “ our friend is a bass,” but so long as the newspaper proprietors permit the family pedigree even unto the third and fourth generation to be slung into an obituary for the low price of 2s 6d the public have nothing to do with jt bqt he amused. However there is a limit to most tilings, and I should say the Adelaide representative of the Press Agency has got pretty close to it, I judge so from the following telegram which appeared in your columns a few days since : “ Adelaide. “Mr Howard Clark, editor and principal proprietor qf the “ IJ.e'giafcer,” died on Monday. His mother was sistpr to Sir Rowland Hill.”

The regret which anyone who know Mr Clark would naturally feel at hearing of his death would not, I imagine, be much assuaged by the knowledge of the fact that his mother was sister to Sir Rowland Hill. There is no balm to grief that I can see in maternal connections or indeed any connections, however aristocratic. A Duke addressed mo once. He made one of the rudest remarks it has ever been my fortune in the course of a long and hard career to listen to. I hope you will not mention (his fact to my advantage in my obituary notice. Before leaving this subject I trust you will excuse my suggesting that it would be as well if you were to caution your wire correspondents not to lay in obituary pedigrees more than once a week. It’s a thing that will grow and grow expensive at that. It is, says a northern contemporary, one of tho greatest safeguards of public purity flint jt pays best to ho thoroughly honest in journalism, and ft newspaper which is thus honestly conducted is a precious possession to any community. On tho principle that people frequently admire in others what they do not themselves possess, perhaps an honest journal might be regarded,in the light of a sweet boon. It would be a costly boon I think. So costly that like those follows who the gods love, it would die early. I’m not quite clear iu my

mind what honesty is. Judging from the standards I have read about or this virtue, I should say it was getting as scarce as the White Crane. As civilization lets down and thickens out, honesty gets more and more worn in the process. If Diogenes lived here now he would not muddle away his time fooling around with his lantern in quest of what would bo as hard to find as—lot us say the Holy Grail ; and if that dear old gentleman who on the strength of having given both sides of the question a fair trial, told his son that honesty was the best policy, were knocking round here now he would materially alter his final tip. But I’m wandering away from the question I meant to ask you in connection with upright journalism. What I want to know is, whether it be honest for an inkslinger of integrity to write down a stilty, curby-hocked, fiddle-headed, flat-sided horse as “a useful animal ” ? Whether it will be recorded against him when he describes some squall of a sieger without one note in its voice as having “ gracefully responded to a well-merited encore ” ? Whether it’s a deadly sin to say that “ Mr Bung catered with his usual ability,” when the writer knows from a personal experience that the repast he is writing of was bcerily Barmecidal to a degree ? Whether but we will not pursue this subject further. There is no use iu dwelling on a topic which would bo uncomfortable to the feelings of oven one or two of your readers. Does it ever occur to you to consider the immense strides machinery is making, or rather how science by means of machines is ploughing up the dormant fallows of an effete past, I’m not quite sure whether the construction of the above sentence will rumble out right, but our dictionary has been absent for a week, and the old man misses the useful production of the literary Webster when he gets on certain topics. But there is no denying the fact that machines have been invented for nearly every purpose under the sun. Some of them have not come up to the expectations of the inventor or of a trustful public. I refer now more particularly to the haircutting machine which some few summers since it was my privilege to sample. It was a simple affair. It turned with a handle. When the handle turned a series of blades ingeniously constructed by the inventor so to be always trying to get into the right place and never succeeding, ploughed up your hair and chopped it out in lumps. It choked sometimes. This was the only advantage it had, for no martyr that ever martyred could have stood the operation in one act. At such pauses the subject would writhe in the chair, and think with vigour of all the words wicked bargemen use on the silver Thames, and after adding a few more on his account would get shorn more. Finally, after paying up, he would leave with a kindly feeling towards those Indians who are satisfied with scalping their victims. This machine got played out somehow. It never got time to get enough improved, and for years I’ve been wondering what the trade would fetch in fresh to keep pace with the march of civilisation.

It has occurred to a Wellington barber to introduce feminine shearers. It is, I understand, a success. It knocks the public. There is one aged gentleman there who, when the movement started, had only seventeen hairs on his venerable head. He has them still. He has them clipped week about, and top dresses steadily with tricopherous. Ho takes a new interest in life, and is happy. This is how a former resident of Christchurch, now living in Dunedin, announces more bliss to the world at large : BIRTH. On the 15th April, at her residence, next Queen’s Theatre, Mrs Almao, a sou, just arrived.

I should presume so. Professor Stanich, the Palestinian Aurist, who is at present on a visit to Christchurch, publishes a testimonial from a grateful patient, in which the G.P. says he has pleasure in testifying that ho feels little defect in the social circle or the public hall. “ I may add,” he says, “I never knew what it was to hear a sermon through until the past fortnight.” lam not of course aware under what minister the writer has the privilege of sitting, but there are cases where such a recovery as hia would be_ at least a questionable advantage, I have listened to deliveries which, were I condemned to hear regularly, I could be resigned to, nay, even glad of deafness. The account of a recent assault case which appeared in your columns is more than touching. A gentleman got tipsy’and went for the landlord. The landlord went for him, and, with the kind assistance of others present, there was a nice pleasant free fight. The better half of the landlord’s opponent, it appears, was present and gave her evidence, in which she stated that that the hostelrie in which the contest took place “had caused her more misery than all her married life.” I have been trying to|make up my mind which the lady meant to he most severe on—her husband, or the public-house. I think the latter, but her remark must have been really most gratifying both to her husband and the landlord.