LOAFER THE STREET.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1354, 17 June 1878, Page 3

LOAFER THE STREET.

[PHOM THE X’HESS.] I have occasionally, so far as an outsider like myself can, endeavoured to show how hard it is to run a paper to the satisfaction of all concerned. As an additional proof of this, allow me to quote for the benefit of your readers the following letter which lias been received by one of your up-country agents “g; r) —X am so disgusted with all this backing and filling about the European crisis, that I am determined to discontinue the Weekly Pbess till there is a good war on. Please tell the Editor if he sends the paper to mo any longer till that occasion it will be at his own risk ; but the moment war is established between Russia and England send me two copies.” . j Personally even in the face of the writer s belligerent offer of a double subscription I should prefer pence, but then your dissatisfied correspondent lives a life of Arcadian sheepiicity miles away in the North, and you ana I are ever so much closer to the privateer crowd which it seems are already on the hover. We can learn a lot from the Americans. If you compare their style of advertising with ours you will perceive I’m right for once. An American advertising paragraph is often a perfect idyll in itself. Puffin “the Critic” was a man who would haye made a fortune in the States to-day. There is a want of sentiment and poetic feeling about our advertising public that is very depressing to a constant reader like myself who wades daily through columns of sale notices. I had made up my mind that the prototype of the immortal Robins was never to appear again. A few days since, however, I found I was wrong, and I mentally cried peccavi over a catalogue 1 oamo across of the sale of town sections in the rising township of Freetown. The compiler was a real artist. The degree of latitude (43 S) which is, he says, recognised as being the line of geniality, passes through Freetown, so will a railway shortly. Silver, lead, gold, and minerals of all descriptions, abound in the vicinity, which is picturesque, and in the immediate neighborhood of the elegant residences of Messrs Mallock and Lance. Rut the peroration is realiy charmingly artistic, as the following quotation v. ,!i show ; —“ior children, for xlnmar/ied indies of an uncoition age for whom it is of vital importance that something tangible should be secured for their maintenance in after y. avs, the opportunity now offered, &c., &c. The last moments of parents who had invested in a Freetown Section would bo comforted with the assurance that their children whan I hey v ime of age would have the wherewith to stave off an evil day.” I don’t know anything about Freetown, but for the sake of breaking the monotony of land sale advertisements I wish some o! our auctioneers would follow the example of E. Moses and Son, and keep a poet of their own. The following telegram appeared in a recent issue of your paper ; “Wew Plymouth, June 10. “lycwi has telegraphed to Sir Q-. Grey:— ‘ Your word is good. Re sure to meet mo on j 2lst June.’ " “ Major Brown, Civil Commissioner, calls for : tenders in to-day’s “Herald” for the creation | of three buildings at VVaitara, to bo comj plctcd by 19th Juno, and for removing the game, for the purpose of holding tho forth-

coming Native meeting. Tenders are also called for bread, potatoes, beef, tea, sugar, &c.” I’m not quite positive that Mr Eewi’s opening remark will meet with general acceptance, but what I want to ask is could there be a briefer or more beautiful description ef native affairs than the telegram of Mr Rcwi, and the sequence contained in the tenders of the Native Commissioner below. I fear your Now Plymouth agent has a turn for satire. Talking of telegrams, the following one was received by a gentleman in Auckland from Dr Somerville : “Bluff, May 30.—Rev. Mr Hinton, Secretary U.E. Committee, Grahamstown. —Embarking for Tasmania. Thanks for Thames love. Doxology. Zealandia farewell. — SomebTILLB.” The sender of the telegram will he remembered as a reverend gentleman who conducted what I believe are called evangelistic services throughout New Zealand. He made a collection hero to erect a building for the Christian Young Men’s Association, a collection which amounted to nearly £IOOO. Without any disparagement either to Dr Somerville’s efforts or the young Christians, I should have thought the money would have been better applied towards a benevolent asylum. I make the suggest ion to the next evangelist who comes through here with much pleasure. Our charity wants reorganising. I may be wrong, but there seems something a bit quaint in sending hundreds of pounds away to relievo people starving in India when we have plenty here who want looking after on the same terms ; while to an aged cuss like myself, looking at the matter from interested motives, there is something almost grotesque in a liberal public parting for Young Christians who arc presumedly able to look after themselves when old Christians who can’t are never thought of. I mean writing you an article on charity one of these days, and if there be any one who can handle this topic in its every branch with success it is the old man who now addresses you. The Mayor of Lyttelton has taken up the question of Sunday labour. This is much to his credit. It would appear that the workmen resident in the port of Lyttelton are singularly formed. They are, owing to circumstances over which they have no control, habitual Sabbath-breakers. The Mayor stated in his remarks to the Council on the matter that by an ancient Act of Parliament workers on Sunday rendered themselves liable to punishment by law. There is something in connection with this matter, to the best of my recollection, in the 4th section of the Decalogue, but this regulation, like the one alluded to by the Mayor, is a sight too old to be remembered when a ship has to lose a day in clearing. Those moat concerned would probably have been aghast at the impiety of opening the Museum on Sunday. They would shrink from a hardened criminal who went for his beer on the Sabbath, but if two casks of butter were delayed on the seventh day they would be thinking all church time of the inefficiency of the Harbor management. Did you go to the levee ? 1 Hid not observe you there, but I noticed a lot of people I did know. I was thinking of writing a paragraph descriptive of this scene, but perhaps I’d better not; in fact I should not hove mentioned what was to mo a very agreeable entertainment, but that I wish to contradict a statement which appears to have gained some amount of credence. It is not a fact that Bilkins improves the occasion of meeting the representative of Her Majesty by pressing his business card into his Excellency’s hand. I hear Bilkins meant to do so, but forgot the card, and when 1 saw him pass through the chamber he looked as if ho had so far forgotten himself as to wash his hands on a weekday. He evidently had somebody else’s trousers on, and was wishing himself in a pit 2471 ft. under ground. Bilkins says ho enjoyed himself. This is how a festive butcher takes advantage of the columns of the “ Patea Mail ” to address unprofitable customers : “ The hungry and needy I will give unto (if asked), but I don’t like my mutton stolen. Shakers of uncooked sheep’s legs from the Green Island Follmongcry beware! Mend your ways, or F, O’S, McCarthy will have you before the Beak.” I see by a recent telegram that at the next meeting of the Otago Institute, Mr Stout will read a paper on “ The Beat Method of Studying Politics.” Without disparagement to the talents of Mr Stout, the comparatively short time he has been a member of the House strengthens me in a belief I have lately become a convert to —viz., that oar politics are not so very hard to learn after all. It does not take long for even an ordinary brain to realise the truth of Sir Robert Walpole’s oft quoted remark in reference to the personal worth of a man. If to a well-preserved recollection of this aphorism a facility be added for imitating the chamelion, and talking fluently about nothing in particular, you have an average specimen [of the better class of New Zealand politicians. At least, so I’m told. I’v never got much further in polities myself than valuating a friend’s vote for him. My charge for this is merely nominal; but if Mr Stout would like a few of my experiences in this respect he is quite welcome to them. The following little story comes from the “Kumara Times,” mid is well worth a quote: —During the hearing of a case in the Resident Magistrate’s Court the provisions of the Tippling Act came under consideration. His Worship, in disallowing portion of a hotelkeeper’s claim, exclaimed —“ I cannot allow it: the brandy stares me in the face!” A hoarse voice, coming evidently from the solicitors’ table, was heard to murmur —“I wish he’d pass it down this way.”