THE WEEK

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 273, 18 November 1871, Page 2

THE WEEK

Parliament is prorogued. His Excellency the Governor has expressed his satisfaction at all that has been done by *' Honorable Councillors and Gentlemen of the House of and has thanked the faithful Commons for the supplies they have voted for. ihe current year, and now the. flood, of , talent .that for the last three months has been pent up in Wellington has, burst its .bondf?, aad Jwill permeate the country in tiny 'riljs^ reaching to the ut^eiMQQq^t parts of toeHJolopy. Goldfields meinjierjsViil call it|ieic*''coDßtitiientß together and gleefully ten 'thena "how cleverly they have checkmated this representatives or" settled 1 0: distr1ct8' r in 'theirendeavors to 'snatch" 'from the'grasp of the miners some'cif :thtiße'plunQß wMch the -seventy-six 'gentlemen whon constitute the House • jof :Represen tati ves; i :jhay e been 2 ■ striving to gain for them who placed them in) ifcheir seats ; ti^j^.tejn^>}r^t|^ezpeot the, congratulations ;of ftheir, 'constituents on haviiiijg secured" this "loaii or that" line of rai^ay^'andcrepce^ebtatives of agricultural districts' will-claim the approbation 5 of ' v the r farmeri 1 ' 4$ Kayin^-place'd a duty of £1 ton oni-'flo'dif. Fpr the next two months the local-paperß will teem with ■ the Bpeectes of the Varilius' representatives; editors will comment ' (; up(m" them id

terms laudatory or otherwise as the case may be ; correspond en fe will, ; some of them gTowl at the neglect, some of them praise the untiring energy &c., of their returned members ; and then the interest in political matters, unfed by daily telegrams from the seat of government, and uo longer kept alive by well-prepared speeches, will gradually die away, and the people will — except when reminded of the fact by twopenny stamps and such like pleasiDg mementoes — cease to remember that such- an institution as ; - a General Assembly ever existed. Mr. This will no longer have the gratification of knowing that the words he speaks this evening will to-morrow be flashed along hundreds of miles of wire, and Mr. That will feel no interest in taking up the morning paper, as in it there will be no record of those profound thoughts to which he * gave utterance some few, hours previously. Nelson, it is to be hoped , will have her Parliamentary memories kept pleasantly alive during the next twelve months. Her Gasworks and Waterworks loans have been assented to, and none "has greater pleasure than myself in believing that the somewhat gloomy predictions that issued from my pen last Saturday are likely to prove groundless. " Thank God for the House of Lords," ejaculated the Wellington Independent upon a recent occasion. It is not often I have a good word to say for that, august assemblage^ but I think they have earned a word of praise for their conduct with regard to the Railways Bill. Seeing, as no doubt 'they did, that b}' voting' an impossible number of lines, it was virtually placing in the hands of Ministers the decision as to which should, «nd which should not, be constructed, they have taken the matter into their own hauds, and by striking out all the large additions that had been made to the original schedule, invested the commencement of those that were left with some degree of certainty, and so we may reasonably hope before very long to see a gang of navvies at work in our province. :Of purely local news the week has been more than ordinarily barren — more than that I think, .if is not possible to say. The Perseverance mine has sent over ; its fortnight's yield of gold, but, although far better than the lastj it will scarcely be considered satisfactory by ;l the shareholders. Five pennyweights to the ton will scarcely pay expenses, and , can only be looked upon as cheering when contrasted with the fact that at the last cleaning up it took a ton and a-half to yield one pennyweight. But even; with this ; improvement, the shareholders are grumbling, and thepHfßftc discontented. They have an idea — and, argue with them as you may, you will never drive it out of their heads — that a lot of stuff is being put through that it would pay far better to pitch into the gully uncrushed, and until they are fully satisfied that some little judgment is being exercised in that direction they will continue to grumble. Many people were anxiously looking oat for the Barkly yesterday, 1 in !order to ascertain what amount of success had. - attended the dredging operations in the Aorere, as, this being a new industry, ; it has excited a considerable amount of interest, but it appears that the machinery; is not yet quite completed, and that it will yet be some few days before operations commence. The wreck', reported yesterday, of the schooner Waihopai, one of the smartest and best found boats hailing from NelsoD, is an unfortunate thing, not only for the owner, but for the place generally, as she was doing good service to the port. It is, however, gratifying to learn that there is some chance of getting her off, as she has gone ashore near " The Lakes," the most favorable 'spot' in ;that most dangerous part of the coast, Palliser's Bay, on which a vessel could possibly be stranded. F.

cated at the charity school of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, and subsequently apprenticed! to a butcher. He soon, however, relinquished his trade, and adopted meodicancy as his entire mode of living. He used to boast tsat, whenever he wanted a

home, he "could .go to his town house— Dorchester gaol. It was discovered that le was again back at Sherborne, and that he had:been in \the "Union of; that town for the last twelvemonth. According to information' received, he has, "since the building of the iriew workhouse there, apparently settled down." He says, bowever, that, lie shall take, another _/' stroll" ■when the late master of the Sherborne • Union, who' has just obtained another : situation, is settled. ; He ' proposes, apparently; to ; call in the character of a' vagrant, upon his old friend, and to stay with him j but at the expense of the district in which he resides... Although he "has been a vagrant for upwards of forty years, he has kept up a constant correspondence with his family — and his letters, though probably in most cases written from his prison, were generally dated frpm some, grand place in the town where he was forced to sojourn. He was also very fond of telling ot the aiistor cratic company he had been in at the races and other public gatherings which he used to frequent. His letters to his relatives are written, in an admirable hand, with scarcely a single fault in the spelling, and ' geheraliy'end with a few lineß of poetry— either of his own composition or a quotation from some much hackneyed author like Quarles, &c. If he wanted to get to any particular place, aud it by chance ' happened to be the seat of the county " gaol^ he would break windows on. the road, and thus be conveyed so. far on his way at public expense. Here is his own story, briefly told, which will speak for itself He is now fifty-nine years of age, aod it may, without exaggeration, be said, that he has been supported for fifty of those years by " the " public — either in the workhouse or in \gaol : — -Honored Sir, . — Apologising for not having replied to your courteous note earlier, I beg to answer some of Mr. B. Tt.'s enquiries respecting me. I left Sherborne to seek employment of my trade (that of a butcher) and not succeeding for a time, I soou discovered that more money could be got without work than with it. What knowledge I lacked was soon instilled into my mind by professional vagrants. 2ndly. How I have supported myself duriog my wanderings. I ht-ve worked but very little at my trade; I have been a cattte drover ; I have been salesman with thrae different cheap-Jacks ; I have been a pothawker ; I have been a vendor of peps, j paper, razors (Peter Pindar's), scissors, J spectacles, laces, &c. I have been a distributor of, religious tracts ; I have been in" the employ (for two years together* of manelaughtering quack-doctors — four/different ones (I am more ashamed of/ this than of any other of my follies, foo the majority of them are not robbers /only, but homicides). I have sold cards/ at all the principal races in England. I a|so attended for many years all the principal prize figh^. I have been a ' shallow cove' (i.e., a member of the land navy); also a ' highflyer ; (i.e., a begging letter imposter); a 'lurker,' one who is forty different trades and master of none. My favorite 'lurk' was butcher, tallowchandler, or currier, and to crown all, I ; have been a preacher ! This game pays well in remote village streets on Sunday evenings, provided you are well stocked with tracts ; .but I was was not fit for it ; my risibility is too easily tickled ; and once when I was invited to ' hold forth ' in a small chapel, I was in little danger of grinning in the pulpit at my own roguery. : Tjhis was at Rothbury, Northumberland. I must also tell you, in short, I have been! a rogue, imposter, and vagabond, of I each and every denomination. I say tais because it is true, because I am" heartilM ashamed of it. 3rd. Mr. R. T. wants tolknow my opinion of the causal wards I have visited. Now I have visited but very fewl — 1 think I could swear that I never was in twenty different ones during the twenty-|w;o years I was, rambling— but lam fully convinced ; that they all tend to foster Vagrancy. Even such places as Oxford, Cambridge, 1 Bath,' Rochester, Norwich, and Hastings, do more harm than good; for out of every ten. tramps there are niue irapoatere, or professional tramps. You may mink this . is. paying *too' much, but I , am sure it is the truth. If there was no relief ' to be had, there would be no vagrants. : The; difficulty lies j in distinguishina between the honest working man and Joe rogue.! Isb'w, the distributors of Charity; in iKoonester seem io pride 5 ;tpemseives ; upon their own sagacity on this I point. , I havebeeW a recipient of : Wattii; pd less! than eight times, so I leave ypultp guess whether they relieved a v fleserving custojmerL in, ,me, : , qr.; rotHpcwwe. In ;; saime^*",. ,llsnce" ■'ga^epmy ticke'tßV"Yhlcii:lj obtained there, to a poor blacksmim wboi had beencrjefased one.^ >The reason lie had been refpseAwasjb.ecause he- was not so; If he^o^iblea a-^ijnic^ Har , he would have^ft^his^r^yhWse, -beer, and *besptii^fr^ito

Mr. E. T. and his collegues will never deal effectually with vagrancy- unless they begin at the right end. Let them, or the Legislature, suppress two-thirds of the common ' ■padding kens,' or low lodging-houses. These are the great receptacles ; of vice io its most repulsive aspect. It is there the supply, of vagrants' is manufactured; it :,is there they' dispose of their ill-gotten gain?, for great numbers of them are regular 'fencing cribs.;' and great numbers ot them" will not lodge a working man at 'all, if they know it, lest he should divulge their secrets. And all lodging-houses ought to be under strict police surveillance. Again, sir, you know, or ought to know, that the greater the villain the more plausible is his tale, and the more assured, invincible impudence he possesses the liklier ,Whe to; obtain, his ends, at least •with people who are little acquainted with these mysteries, for rogues don't 'care to deal with rogues —in truth, they will never trust each other; and I assure yon, sir, the gullibility of the British public is so great, and their hearts so finely susceptible to what they believe to be a tale of genuine distress, ' that their generous benevolence is unbounded. They don't like to be imposed upon; but, as I said before of the rogue, liar, and imposter. practised as he is, soon convinces him that he. at least, does not belong to the cadging fraternity. And now, fourthly, how many gaols? This is a poser. Well, here goes. I have been in gaol move than one hundred different times ! There are but two counties in England that I have escaped ' limbo." I have also been in several in Scotland and Wales. la the great majority of. cases drunkenness has been the cause; I have never been convicted of felony or larceny, but I have for obtaining money under false pretences, and several times for hawking without a licence, many times for vagraucy, smashing windows and other offences, for the whole of which I richly deserve hanging. To this, I presume, sir, you will say, Amen.T-I am, honored sir, your unworthy servant." ......