THE LOAFER IN THE STREET

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2163, 31 January 1881, Page 3

THE LOAFER IN THE STREET

BE l) I CAT BS THE FOLLOWING INTRINSIC ESSAY TO THE CANTERBURY FARMERS. During one seotion of the life of yours most truly, I was a good deal conneoted with agricultural pursuits. When I first came to Australia I began at the foot of the ladder. I was what you call here a " cadet," presumedly from the fact of the originals coming from noble houses too small to hold them. We were called "consignments," probably because we were shipped off in numbers like old clothes to Australia. My first job was pig feeding. The rising sun cast its earliest shadows on my agile form serving my swine with slush. The evening solar performance found me at the same merry game. Thus I know about pigs and a few other matters in connection with husbandry, agriculture, bucolicism, bovinity and ossiness. I am about to comment presently on an article I have recently come across in the " New Zealand Country Journal." I shall work on to this somewhere towards the end of this " paragraph, but I want to have a word, one or two, with some of your pastoral readers on the subject of some of our domesticated animals—animals they are, so to speak, we are in the habit of mixing with every day. I mean the pig and several others. There arc some allusions in this connection I long cherished. They are now swept away pretty entirely from me. I believe it was the immortal Mr Fumbleohook that said a man need not go far for his subjeot if he has his salt-box ready. " Look at pork alone," says Mr P., " There's a subject I If you want a subjeot look at pork." I get sometimes to wander a bit when I start into these esoteric articles. What I want to say jußt here is, that if the Agricultural and Pastoral Association want a subjeot, that subject might be pork, and to pursue the affair further, bacon. The piggiest man I have met here or anywhere, a man whose soul was steeped in his favorite pursuit, declared that no country ought to produoe better bacon than this, but, as a rnle, ho never ate worse. " Look at pork, gentlemen 1 " Mr Pumblechook's tip is a good one. "If you want a subject, look at pork! " But I'm digressing, because the real cove I want to get at to commence with is the author of the pork. I allude to THE PIG. The breed of pig in this country is good. It is universally allowed that our porcine race is very aristocratic. Only at the last Ohristchuroh show I overheard an enthusiast of the pig pen exclaim, " Coarse do you call him ? Why, that boar is a perfect gentleman." There was a good deal of trouble taken here to introduce the right breed. Unless the " wardour of the rain " play tricks with me, I think the directors of this journal gave a prize last show for the "Best Berkshire Boar on the Ground." This showed judgment. This was strides in the right direction. The next stride should be a prize for the best Chinese boar. It has been truthfully urged by many of the highest authorities that introduction of the Chinese strain on the Berkshire and Poland produces an animal combining the refinement of the Oriental with the stamina of the Britisher. Confucius, 1000 years ago, maintained in his volume on Modern Agriculture that the flesh of this cross combined the suuoulenoe of the Puppy Dog with the gaminess of the Stalled Rat. To be a suooess with pigs you must study them. You must perfect yourself in their idiosyncrasies. Few farmers understand the real disposition of the pig. He is supposed to be dirty—so dirty that he has passed into a proverb ; but no animal better likes to be clean. Had he the same chances as the lordly descendants of the Chimpanzee he would be far cleaner thai them. Some of my friends are like Squire Sauley in "Digby Grand," who "only washed face and hands on Sabbath, and often not that," and to whom, since they left their mamma's apron-string, a bath has been a monttrum. horrendum, informe, ingens. When you write bucolics always quote Yirgilius Maro. Mr Maro was a poet, o scholar, and a gentleman. He used to mix up the poet and the farmer a bit, but he pulled through well. His works are very popular with school boys everywhere, who devour his farming poems in their leisure hours.

The pig, I expect many will be surprised to learn, is an animal possessing, like many others of the fasrai, his aspirations. He pines to increase in bulk. His temperament being very stolid, he is well fitted to eat well; but he is not half the glutton he is supposed. Lots of people could learn temperance from a pig. As to his dirty habits, when you "Look for the clipper that stands at the top," you probably see a very nice horse not handsomer than a handsome pig ; but that, of course, is entirely a matter of taste. But you see a horse groomed with a coat like «atin. Not a fleck of dust on him as his clothing is removed; his very boots are cleaned for him, but then you see he is washed and dressed and his box oleaned out by someone else, not to say that he sleeps on nice clean straw every night of his life. You put your pig into a plaoe you call a stye, which is cleaned out—well, probably never. He sleeps for nights after rain on wet straw, and walks and dives all day in a lagoon like an otter for his food. That's how the pig fares, and knowing the effeot this will have on his rotundity, he pines. His soul sinks within him and he refuses to thrive. Then what an exquisite specimen of true maternity does the SOW show herself. With an increase in her family of perhaps twenty-eight at one time how does she accommodate herself to the exigencies of the case ? Wi at motherly tenderness does she exhibit to her troublesome family. It's beautiful. As to the respective merits in the matter of intelligence of the pig and that absurdly craoked up animal the horse, there can be no doubt that the noble creature the horse gets a long away the worst of it. I believe it was Mr Fletcher of Saltoun who made the oft quoted statement that if they would allow him to write the ballads of a country, it was a matter of indifference to him who fixed up the Acts of Parliament. What I want to know is, who stared the brilliant similes of " dirty as a pig," and " stupid as an ate ?" What genius was he who selected the dog as a term of opprobrium? What fools they must have been. An ass stupid! No animal living except the dog and the elephant oan shape for talent with the donkey. The horse, the wonderful horse, everyone oares about, is a swindler from the cradle to the grave. The best remark ever made on this question was that of the famous poetesß, Mrs Hemmings. It occurs in a song once much affected by leading baritones. The circumstances described in this touching lyrio are as follows :—An Arab Scheik having bhied (gambling term here, but popular, meaning lost) his whole patrimony in pale brandy and euohre, found himself reduced to an old crock of a mare, manifestly unsound and a dreadful roarer. This aged Denizen of the Desert having had nothing for months to swallow except fine sand and the blasts of the Simoom and Sirocco, was as thin as a gaspipe. The Arab, who hid a euchre match on hand, had been thinking of selling the old mare, his laßt possession, to raise a purse of piasters (say 3s 6d). He arrives at the conclusion that it would bo too much even for an Arao Soheik to try on. He breakfiiforth into song. This is how he starts, probably "sarabanding" round the old crock—"Me bewtiful, mo bewtifnl, that standest meildly by" " Standest mildly by." Stand of course she would. Stand forty years if she could. Stand as long as the Pyramids. Stand as long as Sir George Grey in the House. Do you think this mare was delighted when the Arab mounted her and gave her about ninety-five miles at top over the desert sand. No. Don't you twig the keen irony of the Child of the Desert ? Of oourse. I will shortly have a few remarks upon the horse, the dog, the sheep, the asß, and the fowl ; but what I was going to call attention to when I started, was a really well written article in the "Now Zealand Country Journal (a most admirably conducted publication under the auspioes of the A. and P. Association, the courteous secretary of which >niutu*

tion is always happy to receive new subscribers—and their subscriptions.) If you start away back ahead of the last parenthsis you will find I'm talking about an artiole. It was on Bees, and very well written too. The advantages of bee-keeping are well put forward, and apiarianism is advocated sensibly and clearly. But I'm not a bee-ist (I have my doubts about how this last word will appear), and a perusal of the article has decided me all the more for tho following reason. Says the writer—- " The principal objection to Bee-keeping seems to be the fear of being stung. If we would be proof against the pain and evil effects generally of stings we have only to inoculate ourselves with the bee virus, or poison, by letting the bees sting us about thirty or forty times, extending over a month, and we may almost guarantee that after the twentieth sting you will feel no effect beyond a slight itching of the part." No, I could never get so far as the itohing stage, but there are plenty who will, no doubt. Any gentleman intending to bee-noculate would confer a very great favor on the present writer if he would kindly tell me when he intends to start. I will be there. At least not quite there, but somewhere near there.