Intelligent Vagrant.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 233, 26 February 1876, Page 13

Intelligent Vagrant.

Quis scit an adjiciant hodiernse crastina summte Tempora Di Superi.— Horace. Children are apt to form a chronology of their own experience by chronicling occurrences of mere local interest. A clergyman at the Hutt yesterday asked an interesting youngster of his flock who had been ailing for some time, when it was that he had first fallen sick. The little boy astonished his pastor by saying, “ Just before the flood, sir.” After a little mutual explanation, it was found out that the boy meant one flood and the clergyman understood him to mean another.

It is comfortable to know that newspaper literature here is not without its “ Jenkins, who is as innocently ignorant as was his London prototype. In a magnificent description of a wedding we have Dickens wrongly quoted, and are told of a certain Maori being fashionably attired in a “ shining belltopper, kid gloves, and boots.” I do not question the accuracy of the description as regards the quantity of the attire. I do object to such limited ideas on the subject of dress being called “ fashionable,” that is until three sixpenny postage stamps stuck on the left breast are recognised as sufficient and “fashionable” dress.

It is the custom to expose the errors of the Press Agency, and therefore justice demands that their good deeds should be mentioned. The Otago Daily Times records in a local that the Agency “sent the Vogel banquet through” to it by telegraph, but complains that no intimation of an intention to “ send the banquet through ” was communicated previously, and that the first of the banquet did not arrive until after midnight. I suppose this is as much as to say that had the sub-editor of the Times known that the banquet was to be sent through he would not have spent 6d. in a mutton pie and a -glass of beer for supper. This is unkind, for considering that I never knew before that a meal could be sent by telegraph, I think the Press Agency did wonders.

Some people, whose knowledge of Latin is derived from handy books of quotations, when they write will stick Latin quotations here and there into their composition, in order to attain a cheap reputation for learning. This is a dangerous practice, as it causes their Latin to be frequently as faulty as their English. Thus, within the space of half a column the other night, there were three little bits of Latin quotations, each containing three words, and about as much muddled as the utmost ingenuity of crassitude could accomplish. When it is pointed out that one of these “ bits ” reads Finis coronet opus, there will be no necessity for even a third form boy at the College to doubt as to what the rest are like. Moral : Even if you are acquainted with Latin, be chary in quoting it, as to quote it is too often an impulse of pedantry. But if you are not acquainted with Latin, be even still more chary in quoting it, and have in mind the exquisite analogy of the monkey and the palm tree. An old Wellington inhabitant now in England telegraphed from London on Thursday:— “ Some fun here. Lord Mayor received congratulatory telegram from Mayor of Wellington, hoping Lord Mayor was well, and got along more comfortably with the city auditors than did the sender. Lord Mayor and Private Secretary have been hunting up gazetteers all day, to find out what Wellington they should reply to, as it seems there are three hundred townships of that name in the world.”

I wrote something about the Press Agency above, and less it might be thought that I am partia to the proprietors of the Agency, I am anxious at once to say that I despise them both one of them especially, who is a nasty rude man, given to saying what he thinks in the plainest possible fashion. It is sad to think that he should, as an esteemed newspaper reports, have been ill-mannered, even to abuse, to a courteous graceful gentleman. It is sadder to think that a person hearing of this said, “and was abused? Well, I did not think he could be abused.” The person spoke the italics which I have caused to be printed. Bishop Redwood seems to hold the same position to the Education Board as an historical personage did to an English King. Bishop Redwood wanted the Board to make him, and those who think with him, martyrs. The historical personage wanted badly to get a similar advantageous position from the King. But 'the King, having sense, refused to gratify the historical personage, and the Board refused to break an agreement, and so give Bishop Redwood a chance of being persecuted.