THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1803, 1 December 1879, Page 3

THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

An earthquake is not a pleasant sensation. It takes people all sorts of ways, and it is curious to observe the different effect it has on different people. Thus in Port the other day people got out of the train to see if any one was shaking it from underneath. At an hotel in Ohristchurch a man seized a gin bottle on the bar counter to save it from falling, and emptied it in his excitement. In a cottage not far from your office a young gentleman, at a qnarter to one on Monday, was embracing a lady, not his mother. He embraced her with a deal of solicitude, owing to the earthquake shaking along at the time. When they had recovered from their alarm and discovered that nothing was broken, Jane was overheard to say, " That's the first earthquake I ever felt, and I don't think they are so dreadful after all."

I am delighted to learn 'that a Professor Nord something has discovered the nor'-west passage. I can scarcely see what good is likely to accrue to you or me, or indeed to anyone else from the Professor's euccess, but I presume there must be something in it judging from the lives and money that have been thrown away over the business for so many years. In connection with the Arctic business, I recently came across a fact which shows that exploring tbere is attonded with more hardship than I had previously been led to suppose. It appears that persons can converse at the distance of a mile, and a sermon was recently distinctly heard two miles away. There are eircumstances under which this would indeed be terrible.

" Top-rail or no top-rail," says a Southern contemporary, was the important question that broke up the deliberations |of the Cromwell Borough Council recently. It had been decided to fence off a dangerous piece of roadway, but one councillor insisted that the fence should have a wooden top-rail. His brother councillors dissented from this opinion, and the top-rail man finding himself in the proud position of a quorum brought proceedings to an abrupt and undignified close by hastily quitting the hall of wisdom. The Mayor having eased his mind on the meanness of the top-rail councillor's proceeding, vacated the chair. There is room for great reform in the conduct of business by our oivic rulers. Mutato nomine, how beautifully the description of the meeting, and the reflective remark of the writer at the finish would have fitted our own Council a short while since, and how very curious Mr Ick must find it to have a team who prefer doing business to squabbling and talking nonsense.

When a comparative outsider wins a race it is wonderful how quiokly an aristocratic pedigree is unravelled for him, and we are all surprised that we did not long before think that he ought to be a good horse. So when a man gets married it not unfrequently happens that in the newspaper announcement of the faot he astonishes his friends with the high tonedness of the breeding of his sisters and his cousins and his aunts, yea even unto the third and fourth generations. I am not clear that linealogical statements such as these are amusing, but if it pleases a man to take the opportunity of his marriage to let the world know that his grandfather was the famous Jubbs, the jujube maker and churchwarden of St. Scallops within London, and that his wife's mother was second cousin to Captain Jinks of the Volunteer Horse Marines, I suppose its all right. Such a chance don't come every day, and this may perhaps account for such men asking European papers to "Please copy." have an account before me of a wedding up North which I only wish I could reproduce in full. The bride, who is described as a "juvenescent widow," was married to a Mr Hone White (John White). The descriptive writer who does the affair is in doubt whether Hone is a Maori, a Fijian, a Kanaka, or an Icelander, but says that his tout ensemble would have been quite as appropriate at a funeral as at a marriage. The bride was dressed in apparel of snowy whiteness, which served to set off her beautiful complexion to the best advantage. Considering that both bride and bridegroom are of the dusky kind, I never recollect reading anything more prettily described. " Much inconvenience is felt here," says a Northern telegram, " among the Natives and Europeans, there being no Frauds Commissioner appointed for this district." Now I should say that was a billet very easy to fill up. I don't know what it's worth, but there are lots of men even in the House who I should say would be admirably adapted for suoh an appointment. JudgiDg from the prominence given to the daily doings of Her Majesty the Queen and the Royal Family generally in the leading English journals, I should presume such intelligence must possess a large amount of interest to a great section of British readers. I think New Zealand journalism might be considerably improved in this respect. I am induced to auke the remark by a Tory in«

teresting telegram which appeared recently in one of the Northern papers. Here it is : " The Maori Sling has ordered a coat to be made by an Auckland tailor, as he does not like the fit of the slop ones." Matters such as the above desire to be more widely circulated, and I'm sure the proceedings of Maori royalty would be read with avidity, as thus for instance:—On Monday Tawhiao planted spuds, and in the afternoon played euchre with Hiroki and a few other highclass murderers. On Tuesday his Majesty received Ngatipotipot, who beiug in temporary difficulty with the Europeans on account of having shot a few surveyors, was accommodated with apartments in the royal whare. On Wednesday Tawhiao went pigstalking. On Thursday received Government envoys bringing gifts from Native Minister. His Majesty expressed himself as dissatisfied with the quality of the presentations, and warned the envoys to be more careful for the future. The Aboriginal Treasurer was directed to make out Grey and Sheehan's account for feasts provided, and to requeet an immediate settlement of the same. On Friday and Saturday Tawhiao slept, an amusement his Majesty is very partial to. On Sunday the Rev. Te Whiti preached an eloquent sermon before the Court. He informed his hearers that the time had not yet come." " A narrow escape from drowning" forms the heading of a paragraph in the pages of a contemporary. A gentleman who appears to have behaved with great pluck rescues a boy from what, I believe it is correct to call, a watery grave. This gentleman's conduct is described as being the more praiseworthy as he is but a poor swimmer, and had not been in the water before for over two years. However much the gentleman in question may have been pleased at the reference to his gallantry, he will scarcely be delighted at the inference readers would draw from the latter portion of the sentence. Two years would seem rather a long time to exist without a tub.

Professional zeal appears to exist in every position. Mr Marwood, who at present fills the pleasing position of hangman to the British Government, writes to an English paper complaining of certain reports which have been going the rounds reflecting dincredit on his professional ability. He says ho has the satisfaction of knowing that his mode of discharging his duties has not only the approval of the Government authorities, but of a large number of private and public individuals, one TSnglish gentleman in a prominent position being so highly satisfied with his knowledge and the discharge of his duties that he has forwarded to him a handsome piece of China, with his name in gold letters. It reminds one of the executioner's cheerful song in the "Tower of London."

" Queen Katherine Howard she gave me a fee, A chain of gold, to die easily; Her costly present she did not rue, For I touched her head and away it flew." After this I almost begin to hope I shall come in for a presentation myself some day. One of the most regular attendants at our public balls is old Jawkins. I'm afraid old J", don't get that amount of amusement from these entertainments he deserves, for his dancing days are over, and he has nothing to do but escort Mrs J. and several Miss J.'s to the halls of dazzling light and take them home again, which last entails his remaining to the bitter end. Supper is the one redeeming feature for Jawkins throughout the weary hours during which he has to listen to the too-familiar dance music which his soul abhors, and watoh the performers in what Mr A. Ward would call the gyrations of the merry waltz. As the wearied dromedary sighting the oasis in the far distance pulls himself together and hoists his hump for a final spurt, so Jawkins, on the appearance of supper, feels his soul revive within him, and goes for the victuals like a lion. Returning from one of these solemn festivals, Jawkins, so he informs me, found himself ascending the stairs behind a young lady and gentleman who had, like himself, been supping. The young gentleman, probably with a lively reminiscence of his recent repast, smacked his lips in a manner which the young lady deemed suggestive of osoulatory advances, and she promptly stated that she couldn't think of such a thing. "No one asked you," ungallantly responded the youth. " Such a thing never entered my head, nor is it likely to." " The position being awkward," said old Jawkins, " I went back and had some supper, and thought how different things are now to what they were in my young days. Bless my soul," said the old man, "I was very near offering to kiss her myself." There are people who cast their bread upon the waters, but who wax impatient over the " many days " they have to wait before it comes back to them. A little lady (four years old) forelosed her mortgage the other day in a very summary manner. She is a unit in the congregation of one of our most thickly populated churches where, like many of her seniors, she has been for some tixo in the habit of contributing threepence in silver every Sunday for some time past. A few Sundays since she astonished her parents by thus addressing the collecting churchwarden—" You come here Sunday arter Sunday and take me treppence in your bag and never give us any. Neck Sunday you bring me turn money." The abashed churchwarden fled swiftly on his feet, and, I'm afraid, the little girl had a severe caution, unaccompanied with pudding, on her return home.