Intelligent Vagrant.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 229, 29 January 1876, Page 13

Intelligent Vagrant.

Quis scit an adjiciant hodiernae crastina summce Tempora Di Superi.—Horace.

There is a very jolly and estimable Customhouse officer, who used to be stationed at Onehunga, and who dresses like a British Admiral ashore. He landed here on Anniversary Day, and may find a special compliment in a remj,rk mads as he went xip the wharf. Three gentlemen saw him from a distance, and one called out, " Why, I'm hanged if here isn't Johnny Martin in naval uniform in honor of the regatta and his being on the committee." In connection with this it may be mentioned that Mr. Macabaw, of Hotbrose, Otago, being in Wellington last week, saw the Martin drinking fountain, and said he " thocht there was unco mickle iron put up to get four wee drappits o' water frae." He was particular, too, in asking to what order of architecture the fountain belonged. Mr. De Snooks, of the civil service, said, in reply, "To the martinesque or tinpot order."

It is a very mean thing to go about saying, a 3 some people do, that the Government steam launch is only an expensive and utterly useless toy. lam sure she was very useful on regatta day, carrying about three civil servants and a soldier officer, who, it is said, neither paid for the coals her boiler fire consumed, nor stooped to an enquiry as to Avhether the engineer was thirsty. But it is all right; these gentlemen were told off to help to amuse , who was also on board.

I think it was Major Pendennis who went to church because he considered that the institution of public worship should be supported. That was not the reason why Sir George Grey was most regular in his attendance upon service at the Wesleyan chapels at the Thames, previously to the election there. Sir George went, we may be sure, because he was anxious to benefit the human race, and do good to posterity. Besides, the Wesleyans have votes as well as other men. I scarcely think it is a matter for congratuation that, owing to the cable being broken, Phillips, who was suspected of being the Ohau murderer, should have got an extra week in prison, and yet a writer tells me "the cable break has added a week to his imprisonment, and this fact lends strong testimony to the value of the cable.." I believe I know what that writer meant, but, as in many instances, he has failed to express it. Something besides confident impudence is required before one can write so as to be understood.

A gentleman who came up from Napier to Wellington a couple of weeks ago was a careful man. He had heard of the scarcity of house accommodation and the difficulty of finding rooms vacant in an hotel in Wellington, so he -sent an advance agent, by the steamer sailing previously to that by which he intended to travel, to secure him a house. When he arrived in Wellington with his family he resisted the offers of hotel touters, and waited patiently on board the steamer for his agent. After four hours, and the agent's coming not, he thought it worth while to enquire a little, and then found that the steamer his agent had sailed in was detained at Castle Point by bad weather. They say he and his family ultimately passed the night on top of Mount Victoz'ia. They went up there to be out of the way of the gentlemen who write locals for the evening papers, for they have a respect for the English language, and did not wish to afford a subject in treating which it would be put to torture.

My friend Piscator is au honest, well-mean-ing fellow enough, and as a Hansard reporter, causes, I believe, no more than the usual amount of agony to the gentlemen who come under his treatment. But when he txies his 'prentice hand on nautical matters, he affords, I am happy to say, opportunities for a little agreeable fun. Thus it is told me that being on board the Avalanche when she was let down from the Patent Slip he was most assiduous in noting any nautical expressions used during the operation, with the praiseworthy intention of reproducing them in his report, and thereby _ gaining an easy reputation for minute technical acquaintance with his subject. Accordingly, when after the Avalanche had been let down into the water the captain loudly called " Port !" Piscator took it down, and then tixrned and asked a friend what was meant by that. The friend said, " the captain wants to know which you'll take, port or sherry." Piscator, who does not spurn accidental hospitality, thereupon surprised the captain by walking up to him and saying, "Thanks, captain, but if you don't mind I'd sooner have a little pale brandy than either !" And it was Piscator's friend that cruelly came' and told me this.

I can scarcely believe it, and yet being in I a newspaper, and such a newspaper —the acme of all that is accurate —it must be true. "On the 23rd inst., at the Terrace, Wellington, Mr. Thomas —— of a daughter." There was an old story in Lempriere, if my memory serve, of a heathen god who once insisted that he was in the same interesting condition as Mr. Thomas must have been, and insisted on making the preparations necessary under the circumstances, so that the thing is not without precedent after all. " Really I have no ambition to shine in that paradise of narrow minds which acknowledges 'I. V.' as its ruler and god." They say that this, and a good deal more tall writing, was intended to refer to me. People who read what I write, and thereby become, as they must, greater and nobler for having read, would not care to get, in place of the elegant personality which forms my chief attraction, a mere reply to a vei*y petty and, in his way, harmless writer, who would rise in the world by controversy with one so superior as myself. Therefore, my friends, with your permission, we will let these little things pass to one side, merely observing that if persistent "cadging" for it could have got one gentleman a place where he would have been ruled by the good-natured, the elegant, and the forcible I. V., that gentleman should have obtained the place. In other words, " Sour grapes said the fox." As the Maoris say, " That is all.'' I believe that if Captain Fairchild be renowned for anything more than for his seamanship, he is renowned for his solicitude regarding all that can conduce to the welfare of those who command him. This was shown by the care with which he despatched one of those hapuka, caught whilst cable sounding in the Strait, for the table of his Excellency the Governor. And this solicitude wa3 scarcely appreciated after all, because Jeames De Lii Pluche, junior, was heard to say, " They gev it hout for the servants' all, but I am appy to say as how no one bemeaned himself by heating of it." Abused by so many, admired by so few, Te Waka Maori has at last received an eloquent, a valuable, and a touching tribute to its literary excellence. In its last number the editor mentions with a feeling of generous pleasure, and in order to let the Maoris see how much appreciated the paper is in England, that he has received a letter from Pkofessoii HolloWAY, in which the Professor mentions that Te Waka has pleased him much, and is a credit to its management. There can be no question as to the credit that Te Waka Maori will now obtain from the natives. As a sequence to this, would it not be well if Dr. L. L. Smith w T ere appointed Under-Secretary for Native Affairs. On the reasoning of Te Waka's editor, this would lend an air of respectability to the Native Department which some say it sadly wants. As brief, touching, and yet expressive a piece of poetry as I ever remember to have met, is that which I see was improvised by a gentleman confined in the lock-up at Albury, New South Wales. He sang it all night, and it ran:— Tooral, looral, la, "What are wealth's possessions ? Bless the gal I love, And blow the (adjective) sessions. I have always thought that horse marines were mythical persons, and that the term itself was only used in cases of extreme jocularity; such, for instance, as if it were applied to people who treat nautical affairs after the fashion of the gentleman who wanted to know what the seats in a boat were called. But it is evident that a horse marine is not a joke, for the Star Boating Club advertises a meeting, I see, for the election of an Officer and General. If a boating club can have a general, why should there not be such things as horse marines ?