MELBOURNE ON SATURDAY NIGHT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 15, 17 January 1878, Page 4

MELBOURNE ON SATURDAY NIGHT.

i[From the Australasian.]] CHEAP JOHN. *Td the diligent student of human ature, and industrious picker-up of dds and ends of out-of-the-way charter, Bourko-street of a Saturday ight, and particularly of a Saturday ight in the holiday season, is a moat profitable and enjoyable hunting ground . It is a perfect mine of humors and whimsicalities. I explored this fair last Saturday evening with such success tbat I could extend the mental notes I then made till tbey would fill a volume ; but the account of my adventures now to be given will necessarily be but a slight anticipatory sketch of a greater work to follow, when publishers ere propitious. Premising that Bonrke-s.reei, for onr present purpose, must be held to include the Eastern Market and the arcades, I will begin with "Cheap John, whose class was numerously represented last Saturday night. He is — to speak of him in a general way —an extraordinary animal, half merchant, and half jack pudding, and wholly Bohemian in habits and modes of life, while in his outward man he combines the peculiarities of the pugilist with those of the oyster hawker. The amount of work he gets through in a night is something stupendous. If we could imagine the same actor ! ranting through Richard or Macbeth, ami then on the same nigh's successfully sustaining the part of clown in a harlequinade, we might partly understand the arduous nature of Cheap John's performance, but only partly. He shouts at tbe top of hie voice all through the night, gesticulates witb insane robustness and vigor, and all tbe while he is studying his audience with a most critical eye, like a akilful Parliamentary debater, that he may change his line of argument as cireumsiances seem to render judiciouß. It is doubtful whether maoy men could be taught to do the work well, for besides much training and practice, the doing of the work requires considerable natural talent. But if "two men of opposite qualities could be rolled into one — say j David Gaunson and Thomas Wieland — the combination might prove fit for the post, although the matter remains quite uncertain. All this, however, only applies in strictness, to cases in which the oratory of a Cheap John eatablisb- j ment is done by one individual, as is generally the case, but not always. Cheap John is a corporation of three or ! more persons, one of tbe three to dia- j course the public from the stump, I another to select the goods and pass j them oat in front of the waggon, and the third to take them in again at the back when they have not been really disposed of, but only strategically, to accomplices, in order to "encourage the others," which means tbe public with money in its pocket. The management has thus Bome choice of talent and can withdraw one performer from the stump when he fails to " get " the public, aad try another, just ae tbe captain of a cricket team wili change j his bowlers if they fail to get wickets. Cheap John is gregarious in his habits. Where one is, there are likely I to be others also. Sometimes there aro three or four. Perhaps tbe one show helps the other, by collectiug a bigger crowd and intensifying the excitement. Or they may all be one concern, if the truth were known, and tbeir keen and vituperative competition may only be co-operation in disguise. It is quite on the cards that after abusing each J other all night in the most disgraceful language, the combatants meet later on, and share the night's spoil in an amicable manner, with a pleasant accompaniment of pots and pipes. Conspiracies like, this have happened in much higher grades of society, and there is therefore no need to give much prominency tb the matter. The Cheap John style of going to work is of course various, and though for the most part it runs in old grooves, it is sometimes illuminated by flashes of originality, and why not? Itinerant dealers may once in a decade or a century be visited by tbe divine afflatus, as well as others, aud we have not observed that statesmen and poets are similarly visited much more frequently. One Bourke-street operator has far his particular method a capacity for saying rather cleverly the very opposite ot what bo desires bis bearers to believe. " Hare," he will say, «« h a currycomb and o photo album of inferior qualityi how inuch Tor the lot? Will nobody speck? 'J. hen I throw in a pair of damaged bracts aui a pot of bear's grease made of. pig's fat. All silent? Five shillings for tbe whole boiling, 3i, 2s, Is Qi." Now a purchaser cuojjG for was d, and when be has paid bis eighiwacpece, Jack tells him that he was just in tinr, that if he had delayed a tnomeut longer his iot would have been down to 61, which he (tbe buyer) would nn uoubt have regretted all bis lite. Or ajjain — ,s llore is a rusted gridiron aud iiall-i-pouud of tea that has long been under wtvter. How much? Gone to you, mu'ni, fnr eightpence, and when your husband gats sold off through your extravagance in buying trash, don't lay the blame on me." Then a bellow, is put up, and a toothpick, and a box of antibilious pills —all in one lot, and a timid customer offers Id. " Done witb you, mam," Cheap John promptly replies, "but will 1 send the goods home to your genteel two-roomed cottage ia Colling-

wood-flai, and you along with them, siaco yon have squandered your bottom cent?" This is sorry wit, no doabt, but it pleases the public and farthers trade, aod, after all, it ia quite ae good aa much that ia to bo found in the pantomimes and in the Chrialmaa cotaic miscellanies. By way of disparaging their warefe while at they same time the hasten their salp, the Cheap Johns exeroise much ingenuity. One says tbat his goods are part of the stock of a bankrupt who paid only sixpence in the pftund. Another improves upon this, and assures the public that his wholesale merchant paid only three fartbiDgs in the potmcL A third declares that be bought of a man who compounded for one furthing in the pound, and nevel* paid that. A 1 fourth, bidding still higher, says he was : supplied by a mgjo undergoing a sentence of imprisonment for fradulent insolvency under peculiarly aggravating circumstances. Another claims the confidence of the crowd on the ground that his stock-in-trade is part of the cargo of a ship t_at was wrecked on King's Island, and was recovered with muoh difficulty after months of immersion almost ruined ; while still another claims for his goods that they were eold by the insurance offices At a terrific sacrifice, after the disastrous conflagration that occurred at Chicago six years ago. From all which it would appear that no commodity fully recommends itself to the British bargain lover until it has beeu first lost at sea, then burned and at last fraudulently disposed of for nest to nothicg by a dishonest bunkrupt. How any articles exposed for sale can combine oil these qualities it is hard to see. One ingenious Jack far surpasses the devices just described. He assumes an air of brusque candour, and Bays — " I don't known nutbink about your insolvents and shipwrecks and eonfiaggerations. I only know this 'ere — I stole the goods in this blasted waggin, with wioience, and if any other party can get goods cheaper than that they're welcome for me. Can any cove say fairer than that ? Well, then, how much for this 'ere packet of envelopes an* tooth brush, and silk handkrer, aa' mouse trap ? I ain_ got no time to fool roun', but means business. Sharp's the word. A penny for the lot did you say ? Thank you, ma'am ; would you like me to send the goods horae to you in an express ?" And so od. As when you throw your fly into a pool full of fisb, and not one will take the initiative and rise to it, still when one at last ventures to do so and meets his death, many other*, are sure to follow, ao is it with those of the British publio who attend the seances of Cheap John. For a long time there wiil be no bids at all, but when somoone ventures to buy a burned and shipwrecked corkscrew or six-bladed knifp, for eixpe ice, there will set in quite a run upon the emporium, nnd this is the time when Jack bags coin. In one branch of the Cheap John business the mode is to practise upon j the cupidity of the public and its love for gambling by selling sealed packets in which grand possibilities are con. cealed. They contain a few penniesworth of lollies, or of insect powder, or of polishing paste, but a certain percentage of them are also said to contain mooey, varying in value from three pence to a sovereign. MsDy people buy the packets, and most getting no prize go away silent, though sorrowful. Sometimes however, there will be an ill-conditioned ignoramus who feels injured because he does not receive a pound (plus a packet of toolhpowder) for sixpence, and he assails Cheap John with foul abuse, calling him a thief and rogue. But John takes it all with perfect equanimity. He is a man of the world, up in human nature, and he knows that tbere are fools in all communities, forming a larger or smaller percentage in each, as happens. It is nothing whatever to him. He has to earn bis wages, and to suffer insensate abuse is all io his day's work. The philosophical operator now immediately in view is a citizen of the great United States, and ho takes things so coolly that one feels inclined to think that he has no personal interest in the sale of his bug liniment, but •is only im- i proving hia vocal powers (in declaiming in its favor) with a view to future j eventualities, when perhaps, he is a member of Congress. It's about all the same to bim, he takes care to explaiD, whether the public ventures its money or not. If people refuse to have fortune forced upon them that is their business, and tht. result of this kind of talk is that a great number of people buy shilling tickets in the clever uud adaptable Yank 8 luckybug, who but for his eloquence would see Buch things far enough away before they would touch them with the end of a pole.