Life in Grisborne.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 71, 25 February 1885, Page 4

Life m Grisborne.

A correspondent of the Wairoa Gyardian gives the following humorous account of lite m Gisborne:-— The I^ew Year opened m Gisborne with twenty-four full fledged. law,yer's ; with three oil springs, but no oil; two building societies-: and with a loan aud discount company —this latter doing a roaring trade to the full extent of its capital. We are shortly to have -a pawnbroker's establishment, which will prove a great convenience to very many of us. Speaking for myself, I know this will be the case. There will be very many without their accustomed watches and alberts : and the excuse will be that they are at the watchmaker's for repairs, yet all the wliile they .will be m limbo at my " uncle's " that is if the truth be told. How often m my time my watch has been under repairs m a precisely like manner it would be hard to reckon up. The people m Gisborne are the people who demand a study, that their ways may be made known, to be followed and, imitated as a very superior example. It matters hot to us that times are bad and trade depressed, for we bear it with extreme philosophic indifference. Whatever we want, whether it be to eat, to drink, or to wear, we have it, always taking care that whatever we buy is booked. What if we can't pay when asked ? Well, we tell a creditor he must wait. If the creditor says he can't, he is simply told he must do the other thing. What the other thing is we do not trouble ourselves to say. If unnecessarily pressed or oppressed, which we look to be the same sort of thing, we threaten to "file." If the threat doesn't serve we do file, and where then are tlie Creditors? What can they do ? Haven't we made everything over to the wife, or sold everything to a brother, or have auctioned every thing but a few. beg garly valueless things before we gazetted ourselves m bankruptcy ? We have not many fires now, as the insurance offices are so mighty nice that they won't take risks worth acting upon. We are not, a peculiar people : we are a free and easy-going people. A happy-go-lucky people, and what's the odds, as long as one's happy ? Our motto is " Look out for number ope, and the devil take the hindermost." That's what we are, and while we hope to continue so, it's pretty certain our shadows will never grow less. There is no money m the place, not a sixpence that can be collected on a fairly incurred debt. But if a theatrical troupe were to come along, player girls not ashamed to show their legs and sing songs about Champagne Charley, and other songs which, when danced to a chorus, allow of a display of lumps possessing the very smallest amount of drapery above and below them, then, and then only does the money tumble up to be dropped at the pay-boxes of the halls built for local amusements. 1 haven't paid my baker nor my tailor nor my butcher for months, nor my grocer nor my draper. I tell them I have no money, and that it is of on use to dun me. But only think at Christmas what a spread I had, — turkey at one end of the table, fore-quarter of lamb at the other, pigeon-pie m the centre, green peas, salad, claret, bottled ale, and Hennessy. When the new year came did I not drive out m a trap and pair of horses ; did I not order

all that was good and to be got at the hotel I put up at. But how much have I paid for it all? Why, nothing ; not certainly more than five shillings spent on the line of road fbr *"■ shouts," which, I am sorry to say, does not mean ready coin. My livery stable- keeper is not paid : my hotel bill has been stuck up ; but here I am, well and hearty ; I have had my pleasuring, and you will, I think, admit I have had it on the cheap.