Intelligent Vagrant.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 227, 22 January 1876, Page 13

Intelligent Vagrant.

This is the Empire City, and its inhabitants are occasionally apt to be a little empirical in the way of spelling. Two days ago a merchant In a small way in Willis-street had chalked on a piece of board the announcement, “ Buter tubs for sale.” He saw me looking at it, and said, in offended yet inquisitive tone, “Ho you find anything wanting ?” 1 told him I thought he had accidentally left a letter out. He looked at the announcement, said “ God bless me ! of course; yes; how stupid !” rubbed it all out with the palm of his hand, and substituted “ Buter tubbs for sale ! ' X really cannot see for the life of me why -rour critics should pitch into each other about their respective criticisms. I read them all carefully, and find in each the same admirable contempt for sense. Thus a water-witch tells me—“l went round the rocks as usual this morning and saw them do their customary distance, but nothing demanding remark took place.” That is not bad. The rocks did their customary distance, did they ? After that I give rawing cilticism up, and conclude that the ciitic's head and the racks are fonned of similar materials. There has been a good deal of talk about the difficulty experienced in picking up the cable. But from something I have seen that difficulty seems to me to be as nothing compared with the difficulty of picking up a gas main. For opposite the gasworks they have lately turned xxp the road from its profoundest depth in a here and there sort of manner. When I enquired what they were doing this kind of subsoiling of Macadam for, I was answered by an intelligent workman that “ they was looking for the gas main.” Well, one would have really thought that the Gas Company could have found their main opposite their own doors, as it were, without trawling for it in a manner with pickaxes and spades and shovels.

We have all, I doubt not, heard of, and several have, perhaps, seen the inscription in the cemetery of Pere La Chaise, in which it Is stated that “ undei’neath lies the body of Jacques Bonjour, man milliner of Rue . This monument is erected by his xxtterly inconsolable widow, who continxxes to carry on the bxxsiness with the cheerfxdness and alacrity that formerly distinguished it.” lam reminded of this inscription by the advertisement I read in a Wellington paper three days ago, in which it said—“ On the 13th inst., at Wellington, wife the of P. G. B d, bar-rister-at-law, Middle Temple, London, and formerly of St. John’s College, Cambridge, of a son.” Now this suggests either an unconscious advertisement like themonument noticed above, or is perhaps an indication of what the son must turn out, considering the qualifications of the proud parent. It is funny what cuiious news we read about ourselves in far away papei-s. The Brisbane Courier, under the heading Hew Zealand, says :—“At Wellington some men bored a hole in the ground for 100 ft. Mud came out first, and then gas, which on being ignited threw a flame 30ft. high.” See that now ! The Wellington papers have lost an item. This cannot refer to the oil springs at Poverty Bay, thoxxgh, indeed, Gisborne was not unremotely connected with them. It mxxst have something to do with oxxr own dear old Gisborne, who got fully a hundred feet into mud not long ago, and about whom there was not a little gas, that has subseqxxently died out in flame and smoke. But the foregoing is not the only interesting item of Hew Zealand news in the Courier. Another paragraph mentions that “ the Taranaki, bound from Holson to Taranaki, passed through 150 miles of icebergs, and some of the passengers were frostbitten.” This, besides being xmtrxxe, contains an impxxtation on my fellow-colonists. If a number of them had passed through one hundred and fifty miles of icebergs it is possible that some of them might have been drxxnk at the end of the voyage, bxxt so long as there was liquor on board, not one of them would have been frost-bitten.

The Otago Guardian has a most calumniatIng report of a recent meeting in Dunedin for the election of a school committee. Because one gentleman offered a few casxxal remarks, the Guardian kindly reports him as “ The Tipsy Man.” How I give the report of what he said, and I think everyone who reads it will agree with me that, for a tipsy man, “ The Tipsy Man ” made some highly sensible observations. This is the report : Mr. Pish continued, and when the expression “ the school should be erected on the category of a new school ” was read, The Tipsy Man : Erected upon what ? Mr. Pish : Erected upon the reserve. The Tipsy' Man : Why, he said, “ Upon the category.” (Laughter, hisses, and cries of order.) Oh, it is all right. Dr. Stuart says category is a class. Mr. Eish then finished his reading, and proceeded to denounce the conduct of Mr. Stout and the Pravincial Executive. Mr. Stout rose to speak.

The Tipsy Man : I have resided in Dunedin fourteen years, and never saw anything like it. It is simply Mr. Stout against Mr. Pish, and Mr. Pish against Mr. Stout. It is all politics and no business. (Order, order.) That last remark of “ The Tipsy Man ” is as accurately applicable to Dunedin meetings as possible.