LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1376, 13 July 1878, Page 3

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

[FBOM THE PBESB.] Colonel Haultain, I see from the North Island files, haß been lecturing to a Young Men's Christian Association. His subject waß, " What is a Gentleman." It is a topic requires a good deal of handling, and one which every day I get more mixed over. The Colonel cites Abraham, Moses, and Job as gentlemen, and lays down three leading qualities as the basis of this title of distinction, viz., loyalty, courtesy, and beneficence. I trust times have changed a bit since those three virtues were considered necessities I hope so, for reasons obvious to yourself. I should like to know your views on this subject. I know Borne low wretches who have no aspirations to such a distinction, and who yet possess a lot of what I'm inclined to fancy might be called first-claes chivalry. They not only possess it, but act on it in a kind of surreptitious style. I have known, too, such a lot of high-toned men who pass as gentlemen whoso biographies, if published, would take a high class in a new edition of the " Newgate Calondar." Selfmade men who worship nothing but their creator. Chaps

"Whose words .ill men relv on, But who never did a kindly act Except a worldly-wise one. Men who, if no one were looking on, would take a potatoe out of a blind bow's mouth. Men who are thick on praying for miserable sinners, but never go "one better" for them. Bless you, there's heaps of gentlemen about in this place; but, though its no affair of mine, I sometimes wonder how many have a right to the name. Colonel ITaultain's v'ows are not fitted to the times. You think the subject over and write 113 about it. The following was received in answer to an advertisement for a housemaid in one of our

country journals : " T)ear Sir, I hear sertify if yer want a smart housemaid aply to the Oamaru Imigration Officer for Gessica." A. correspondent of yours has recently called attention to the matter of surveyors' salaries. He quotes the case of a surveyor who has to provide an equipment of horses, waggon, tents, instruments, &c. He is, as the writer says, entrusted with grave responsibilities not only of a professional, but a financial character, and he gets paid—£l2s a year. His chainmen, I should say, get nearly as much. I call this offering a premium to dishonesty. And yet it is far from an uncommon occurrence, not only in the Government, but in private employ. Men are shoved into positions which entail expenditure on a salary which would not much more than keep two of your boys in cigars, and when they round on their employers the latter " wonder at crime." The question of salaries wants a thorough reorganising. You might set the example, and though for Borne reason or other you don't let any money pass through my hands, you might commence with a readjustment of my screw.

Tho Borough Council of Sydenham is a newly constituted body, and I infer that tho member is new to public life, who moved the following resolution—" That the attention of his Worship the Mayor be called to the reports in the newspapers ridiculing the English of a member of a deputation attending this Council—this being outside the business of the Council the action of the reporters is in questionable taste." I am not in possession of the actual facts of the case, and cannot therefore speak positively as to the extent of tho reporter's guilt, but know, oh most sensitive of councillors, that you will in the course of your civic duties hear English which is utterly beyond ridicule. You may learn that even councillors have had cause to be grateful to the questionable taßte of reporters who occasionally spend hours in making speeches appear coherent. A large portion of a reporter's life is spent in making the speeches and actions of people intelligible to others. Thus it is that reporters' drink sometimes, die early, and dam up their emotions and other things. I see among some recent news items that a Chinaman has sued the Sheriff of San Francisco for 10,000 damages, because he was compelled to submit to the prison regulations and have his hair cut within an inch of his scalp. He claims that the loss of his queue denationalised and disgraced him in the eyes of himself and his friends. It's strange from what different aspects people view things. I should have thought denationalising a Chinaman would be almost the greatest benefit a man could confer on one of that race. China invented tea, Confucius, gunpowder and the silkworm. This happened many years ago. China has given up inventing now. She contents herself with sending out hordes of barbaric immigrants to be a plague and emphatic nuisance to the countries wherein they sojourn. A Chinaman is as laborious and patient as a flea in a Wellington boot, only he's a worse problem to solve. In the same column from whence I gleaned about the Chinaman, I see that the Rev. J. J. Ray, a reformed Brahman priest, has been found guilty of bigamy. As we are short of first-class crime here, perhaps they might send us round an unreformed Brahmin layman.

There are sometimes uncharitable remarks made, not perhaps quite without foundation, as to the quality of the alcoholic refreshment given to their customers by the licensed vicf uallers. But opinions vary so much as to quality. For instance, the following order was sent in to a publican : —" Mix of port wine 6d, rum 9d, old torn 6d, brandy 6d, English beer 6d, lemon 3d; total, 3s in a bottle." The gentleman who sent this order has never since been heard of. If still alive, perhaps, should he read this paragraph, he would not mind sending a few particulars of the effects produced by the above receipt, which, by the way, he called a cocktail. In the London Market Report of the Now Zealand National Mortgage and Agency Company the following sentence occurs : —" Fair New Zealand is worth £22 to £23 per ton, at which a few small sales have been made." I know a many Fair New Zealand's who would sell well at the above quotations, fair New Zealand's who would run about four to the ton. But the buyers of such goods grow scarcer daily. With the amount of high-class education there is about I wonder we aro not particular about our public notices. The Cathedral authorities worn people that there is no admission to their sacred precincts " except on buisness." And even at the railway the windows are painted as follows —"Ladie's Refreshment Rooms," " Gents Refreshment Rooms." It's not pleasant, but I don't mind being considered " a gent" if any one asks me to drink, still public bodies, such as the Railway and Cathedral authorities, should be more careful about their orthography. I don't mind bad spelling myself. I'm used to it, but I mention the fact for the sake of young Canterbury.