THE PERIPATETIC PHILOSOPHER ON SQUATTERS PAST AND PRESENT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 71, 25 March 1870, Page 2

THE PERIPATETIC PHILOSOPHER ON SQUATTERS PAST AND PRESENT.

The Pjresent. As I looked up from Robin Ruff's letter. I saw Mr. Smooth iv the doorway. He was a very different stamp. Mr.. Smooih was a very young gentleman. His hands were brown but well-kept, and his whiskers were of a fine yellow floss-silk order, like the dow*i on a duckling. He had but lately come down from his station, but was arrayed in the most fashionable of fashionable garments. His trousers were so tight, that his legs looked as if they had been pateuted by some monomaniac player on the flute, as cleaning machines for that instrument of music. His waistcoat yawned like a whited sepulchre. His rnauly breast was like nothing so much as Biddy's canvascovered trunk studded with brass nails, and at his throat and ou his wrists gleamed gigantic plalcs encircled withhis name and date — I mean his crest and bearings. The crest of the Smooths is two flat irons rampant, and from every available portion of my young friend's body gleamed golden repetitions of those time-honored weapons. He wore a hat which seemed to have been made by an ecceutric hatter, who in the midst of an attempt to imitate the headcovering of a sooniug coal-heaver had beeu stricken with remorse, and going into the church haJ finished his handiwork with a haunting sense of the beauty of episcopal broad-brim, His manner was affable and easy, he smoked a very strong cigar, and cursed only to that extent necessary and becoming in a inau of fashion. " Well, 'Q' you melancholy old cuss," exclaimed this Arcadian youth, " how are you ? G-ot any soda and b. ? I was so dooced cut last night. Went knocking round with Swizzleford and Rattlebrain. C'tiino, and V'ri'tes. Such a lark! Stole two boots and a bras,-; hat. Hung a notice of a bal masque ou the railing of a Baptist chapel, and stuck a board with 'Mangling done here' on the Hospital gate. Knocked down 13 notes, and went to bed as tight as fly!" This and more he tells me — sitting the while ou the end of my sofa, swinging his flute-cleaning leg and puffing with his cigar at an angle of 4odeg. Mr. Smooth's papa — Dudley has been named after his uncle, for whom the family entertain a profound respect, as a man moviug in £ood society, — came out here 15 years ago, and made his fortune by lucky specuiations iv land, He owns several stations, has a house in the hottest and most uncomfortable part of South Yarra, and is a most respectable person, with a stake in the country and a tendency to stomach. He has placed Dudley ou the Murriowooloomooloo-neriangtrotolong station — he likes the fine old native names- — but that young gentleman is "managing" it at a fine rate, He labours under the impression that his society is much sought after by ladies, and behaves to those poor creatures in a tyrannically fascinating way, putting his name into their programmes with a tender violence that isquite affecting. He dances a little wildly, but with much vigour aud height of action, and is notaverse to, the practical joke of driving au elbow into the ribs of his fellow-<_ r uests of the male sex. He plays billiards fairly, and is proud of his skill at pool. He makes a book on the races, and is almost as fond of losing as of winning. When he comes down from the country, he makes, as ifc were, a foray into an enemy's country. He does not enjoy himself much during the day, the time hangs heavily. Having paid a visit to his father and mother, if they are in town, he " looks up a friend," and the two loaf aimlessly about the town. They mny be seen "knocking the balls about" at Scott's or the Port Phillip, or drinking "soda and b.," or " sherry and bitters," at any decent bar in town. But it is at night when they enjoy life. What with the theatre and the cafe, they 'feel quite like old roues by midnight and stroll down to the Varieties or the Casino like a twinned- Alcibiades in the Agora — only they have never heard of Alcibiades. There they driuk and smoke, aud bask in the smiles of lieauty. Dudley is two-and-twenty, and iuteuds soon to go home and see the old country. He isquite complacent about it, and talks of "doing Europe "as he would of " doing " Collins-street. He has not a very strong sense of moral responsibility, for though he would not willingly do a dishonorable action, he is so impressed with the virtue of success that a {! smart" scoundrel is, in his eyes,

a far more worthy being than an honest dunderhead. He is making money, however, and has no reason to be otherwise than honest. His station is fitted with the latest improvements. His prize cattle are fattened ou prize principles. His sheep are washed with hot water, and his paddocks are sown with English grass. He has not arrived at the glory of his next neighbor, the Hon. Tom Holies, younger son of the Marquis of Portrnansquare, who was educated at Oxford and Cirencester, and has taken up squatting on scientific principles. The Hon. Tom washes his sheep in an Americau dip at the rate of 200 a minute, drafts cattle in lavender gloves, has nearly perfected a shearing machine, quotes JEchylus to his overseer, prohibits all swearing, except on Sundays, aud has named his bullocks after the most distinguished of the early Christians. The Hon. Tom belongs to a later phase of development, and Dudley is far behind kirn in civilisation, but he stands out in alarming contrast to poor honest, simple-minded Robin Ruff. This is «i great colony !