THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1836, 10 January 1880, Page 3

THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Did you over read the “Lives of Eminent Pirates and Bea Bobbers ?” I did, and liked it. I should at one time have liked to be a sea robber or a highwayman. I have changed since. Celebrities of this class usually get hung up by the neck till they are dead. Fame of this class is comparatively useless. Biographies are only occasionally interesting, for Boswells are very 'scarce. Mr Henry Kingsley once said he would some day write a history of eminent billiard-markers. My taste don’t lay in that direction, but I fancy I could write a very amusing paper on the lives of celebrated coach-drivers. What a list could I give, from Ned Devine to the cheerful Sprightly who nearly broke my neck on the Grey, Old Shepherd, Knox, Martin Stobie, Dick Greening, West Chamberlain, and heaps on the other side of the water who the greater portion of your readers never heard of. To come to some perhaps they do know, I could make a very readable Christmas number out of Messrs Sam Lee, Cassidy, Power, Macfarlane, and Main. I could, indeed, and I’ve a groat mind to do it next year if you are agreeable. The people I’ve mentioned always are. I thought of this on top of the coach the other day going to the Head of the Bay. It may be as well to tell your readers at once that I was going down to report races for your admirable journal, and that not being a sporting cues myself, I felt as much out of place as I well could do. I didn’t say so. Every person connected with a newspaper knows something about everything. Bless your soul, if the Admirable Crichton wore to come here now I could find a dozen reporters that could run rings round him, I think, in fact I’m sure, it’s in “ Bob Boy” that Sir Walter Scott asserts that no matter how modest—how unassuming a man may be, he cannot stand being thought a bad horseman or a bad judge of a horse. The Wizard of the North was right. The only man in this country I ever met who actually allowed to me that he know nothing of horseflesh, was a party belonging to your office, who I asked to take a ticket in a horse raffle, and who declined the ticket on those grounds. He told—but why take up these things when the man is hero still, and measures forty-five inches round the chest. There are limes when even Juvenal would slip his whip in his pocket. As I was saying before, I got discursive. I was thinking out my racing campaign on the top of the coach eti route to the Peninsula, and sitting beside my old friend Bob Main. There is nothing new under the sun, especially about the Akaroa road. I wish there were j but I am afraid even a long enduring person like the editor of this paper wouldn’t stand a rechauffe of the thousand and one accounts we have had of this journey. William Shakespeare created a character once who could find sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, and good in everything. No one but William could have thought of such a traveller. I’m not that way. I wish I were, foi what a special I should make. Now in this case I can find nothing to even point a moral, or adorn a tale the whole road along. It was very pretty, and it being a very pleasant day, and Bob amusing, I enjoyed myself, j You don’t want to know about the crops, do you ? Of course not. I could make some capital out of them, and had I the art of limning I could amuse you with sketches I might have taken of people we met (it was Christmas Dij) going out for the day. Many years ago M. Froissart observed that Englishmen took their pleasure sadly. Balwer Lytton makes a similar remark in a play you may have heard of, the “Lady of Lyons.” The Englishmen we met were very sad looking. They were apparently going either to church to see their mother in-laws or to funerals. What a nice merry race Englishmen arc. I cannot he enthusiastic about Christmas here. Except bills there are no associations. Church, heavy dinner, sister, cousins, and aunts, including their babies in the afternoon, more gorging and more relations in the evening, and that’s Chiistmas here. I don’t speak on my own authority, but on that of many ynung friends from whose private relations I have with much caro compiled the above account of the festive season here. It may be taken as statistical, and I should any was perhaps the most reliable and interesting part of the prosent communication —especially to new arrivals. Now I liked my day, I liked the icenery, I liked my yarn, liked the placid lake and the stately swans on it. No, I won’t do it. I wan very near getting on the paint, but it wouldn’t be fair on the road. I stayed at Mr Brooks’ at the Herd of the Bay. It is a fine commodious hotel, with good accommodation for visitors, and as an old traveller I can say I was very comfortable. For the benefit of future visitors I wish to relate a small experience. I forgot, my razor. There is no barber yet settled in Duvauoholle’s Bay. I fancy it would scarcely pay him. I met three friends of mine shortly after arrival, Messrs Shadbolt, Piper, and Lee. The two former have been on the Peninsula for many lustres. Mr Lee knows everyone. I confided to them my difficulty. The first two gentlemen, after mature consideration, assured me that to the best of their belief no one in those parts hod ever shaved since their arrival. Mr Lee sugges'ed I should walk about amongst the crowd and watch for a fellow with a ohavi d chin. It was a lengthened vigil, so to speak, but I got my man at las'—shaved smooth as a button. He wis a kindly man and, heaven forgive him, he lent mo his razor. In the privacy of my own room I toiled real hard with that instrument. A fairer trial was never given to any implement Beal largo beads cf perspiration ponrtd oil my brow. Tears, not idle tea s, flowed down my cheeks. I walked forth a humbling sight—a sanguinary object. We live. We learn, I had learned what a man may accomplish with a razor when he seta hie mind to it. I also had earned that when you go to the Peninsula, H’b best —well, not shave. Some sporting

writer gays all race meetings ore alike. It may bo so. I’m not a judge, but, speaking according to my light, I should say, if this fco the ease, the Head of the Bay meeting must bo the exception that proves the rule. The course here is on the sand, and the races are of course dependent on the tide. If the events are not run off with punctuality, the horses run through the water for a considerable distance. This makes things much more interesting. It is an equine regatta—an aquafio horse race. It is—l’m blessed if I know what it is, except that it is very funny. The racing section of the public excepted, no one seemed to take a very absorbing interest in the racing until the horses actually came to the finish. Some capital foot racing took place, but a feature of the performance, which was to me, I confess, utter y incomprehensible, was the Modrl Yacht race. Some toy boats were started a long distance off, and cruised about indefinitely, each shepherded by a crow in a rowing boat. Mainly, so far us I could judge, from tho assistance of their pilots in tho rowing boat, the model yachts arrived promiscuously at their respective destinations, and some one it is natural to suppose won tho slake, but the principles of the game are still veiled in mystery from yours truly. The sport is very nearly as interesting as a real yacht race to an onlooker, only I must in justice say you see rather more of it. I didn’t disgrace the office though. To this minute I believe the hoys down there think I’m a judge of model yachts, pedestrianism, and horse racing. I think really if you expect a fellow to show himself an expert in so many things it ought to tell in the matter of exponse-s. The boya were very kind down there to your representative. Hospitality was poured over him. Mr Shadbolt took me over his pla. e. Not all over, because the end of it occurs several miles up hill, and its the rule of your office to take views for granted. Mr Piper was the same, if you will excuse the grammar. Mr Lse sent me a nice drive with my cld friend Joe McFarlane to Wainui. Away past French Farm, Mr Knight’s beautiful place and a lot of little snug bays, where people make cheese and butter and grow grass seed, and do well thereby; where there is excellent fishing, and where there are roads so good they would astonish a Christchurch citizen. So from thence, as old Pepys would say, to Mr Birdling’s place, which, from its natural advantages alone, will be one of the most beautiful places in the island. It has associations. So few places here have associations except perhaps fleas. Mr Birdling’s p’acc has. In early days the North Island Maoris used to come down and visit their Southern confreres. As a rule they fought, and on this very peninsula, where fat oxen do now tranquilly browse, the Northerners need to cook the Southerners and eat them quite in a friendly manner. The rampants thrown up by the Yauban of the period are there even unto this day. Taeee reminiscent associations are nice to have about a place. At least ! should think so. Did Igo to Akarca ? Certainly I did. There are associations on that road too. In a garden about half-way between Duvauchello’s Bay and Akaroa—in German Bay as it is called now—is the site of the French commandant’s camp. Here, according to the statement of old Robinson Clough, the Court was held to determine the Maori sovereignty of the Southern Island, and here, according to the same authority, “Bloody Jock” offered to toss the other claimant for the kingdom “one pop ”or “ best two out of three.” Akaroa is a pretty place. What a little garden it is. But every one knows Akaroa. It never alters. It’s five years since I was there. The same old pictu> e stands behind Beecher’s bar of the whale swallowing four boats at a gulp. Lots of well disposed people have taken it for an illustration of the book of Jonah —after ten in the morning, and the irresistible Beecher is still there, and will drink with you if you ask him. He did the same five years since, and will five years hence. Wagstaff's old place —and what a beautiful place it is—now owns the gonial whip West Chamberlain as its host. He wanted to show me over the establishment, which is well—l think tho many scores that have “honeymooned” there can do all the puffing better than I can, though, for associations, commend me to the older house, a well written history of which would read like a novel. Mr Beecher might mats money out of it. They—so I’m told—drink very fairly in sweet Akaroa. As thus— At five o’clock in the morning ono resident—they rise early there —says to another, “My word, it’s sou’west this morning; let’s have a drink.” At six the other fellar says, “By Jove, the Hawea is due to-day.” [Pause.] “Let’s go and sea if Beecher is open.” [N.B Beecher is open.] At seven tho first fellow says, “ Jones came down last night, let’s go up and give him a brandy and soda.” They go and have one, and so on through tho day. There’s no mistake about the Akaroa boys. They do the business systematically. Ycry few town people know anything of the Peninsula. They go on Boxing Day trip to Akaroa got very sick and “ Soothly swear

They never will again go there ; No ! not if it were twice as fair.” Others go, and “ take the family ” for a week stop in Akaroa the whole time, and come back knowing nothing of the beauties of the prettiest part of the province. Some day some fellow will do a walking trip, then go into every bay, interview the old inhabitants, and write an account of it ; and a very readable account it will be, and a vary prime trip. I shouldn’t mind doing it myself.