INTELLIGENT VAGRANT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4482, 31 July 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

INTELLIGENT VAGRANT.

(From the New Zealand Mail.) Quis scit an adjiciant liodiern:e crastina sumraaj Tempore Di Superi.—Horace. I hasten to correct a misapprehension. I am anxious to answer several correspondents. The Hon. Mr. Fitzherbert is not the " Intelligent Vagrant." I am complimented by the mistaken idea, but truth is truth. It is gratifying to be told that none but the hon. gentleman could bo so disagreably personal as I am. It is flattering to be assured that there is an uufeelingness about my sarcasm which at once identifies it with that of the Superintendent of Wellington. Yet I am not he. lam quite willing, however, to resign in his favor, for having heard what he said about Sir Julius Vogel on Wednesday last, I am confident that I never could attain to such sublimity of abuse as would scoff at tho illness of an absent man. I confess to having hitherto had some pride in my utter want of all feeling for any man or any tiling ; but having heard Mr. Fitzherbert, I feel sure that I have heard my master in these respects.

Last Thursday night his Excellency the Governor " hentertaincd the 'ouse," as I was informed by a personal retainer of his Excellency. I should have been aware of the fact, however, even without this. When the Speaker announced in the House of Iteprcsentatives on Thursday evening, " A message from his Excellency the Governor," one gentleman in the public gallery asked " What's that ?" Another gentleman answered him, " They're going to grub with the Governor tonight, and he's sent word to say the fish is getting cold."

Since I am on Parliamentary matters, I had better go on. I wish to make a few remarks on " the Constitutional question." The fact that I am utterly ignorant of my subject will not place me in an invidious position as regards speakers or writers who have treated of that subject previously. When I first heard " the Constitutional question" raised, in the debate on the address in reply, and heard Sir George Grey talk with fervor of " the people," and "death," and all the rest of it,l felt a glow. As a respected fellow-countryman of mine said to me, it was "like ould times." But when I found this Constitutional question, and "the people," and "death" all coming np on every possible subject, I began to feel that it palled on the mental taste a little. I was not surprised, therefore, this week when a reporter, coming to the door of the staircase that loads to both Press and public galleries, asked a gentleman who was going out what was on, and the gentleman replied "the Constitutional question"—l was not surprised, I repeat, sir, then to hear that reporter, oblivious of the sacred precincts, say "Oh, d n the Constitutional question !"

I do not know that what I have written will be of ranch use to lion, members, and it is for their sakes largely that I have written. But I am about to enlighten them on something which they have been puzzled about a good deal. No one seemed to understand how the Reporting Debates Committee proposed to carry out its resolutions, and decide when a member should be reported in extenso, and when not. Well, I can give full information about this. A code of private signals had been drawn up. The Government was to rub its uoso with its fiugcr as a signal; the Speaker would then scratch his head as a kind of answering pendant, upon which Mr. Steward would wink at the Chief Reporter, and the speaker would be summarised, or as the technical saying is, " butchered." After this explanation, I think it is very unfair to accuse the Government of not having the machinery for carrying out its proposals fully planned. If the machinery for carrying out abolition be only half as perfect as that which I have described, the nation need have no cause for fear.

Dr. Featherston's economy does not seem to me to come in always in the right place. He would not send out duplicate invoices, because he wanted to save postage, but when ho was requested to ask the French Government whether Captain Jacquemart, of the Vire, might have the service of plate sent for him by Otago, Dr. Featherston was above using the post, and went over to France in full fig, with quite a retinue, to ask Marshal MacMahon a question which would have lost none of its dignity had it been put through tho medium of a letter.

It is no fault of Mr. Mills that the locomotives he has built to the order of the General Government have on them no protections for the driver or stoker. The engines have been built according to specification, which did not provide for such protections. The reason they were not provided for is simple. Tho Government has taken the Solicitor-General's opinion, which is distinct that it has the power to abolish rain. There will therefore be no more rain in this happy land.

A man died at Feildiug ; an inquest was held. A doctor swore the man died of the ollucts of drink ; but the members of the jury were not satisfied, and insisted on a post mortem examination, after which the doctor swore that the man died of a long word meaning the effects of drink. With this the jury expressed itself quite satisfied. I can perfectly understand this satisfaction, for I mind mo of an inquest once held on the Thames goldtiolds, at which I was not present, but of which I wished to obtain a report. So I asked a newspaper friend who was in attendance what the verdict was? " Died from serious apoplexy," said ho. "Serous," said I, inoffensively contradicting him. " No, sir," he "replied, " It was indeed a serious case." I have no doubt but that my friend and the Feilding jury were in equal ignorance of medical terms. They say that a colony is the place for that peculiar species of self-assertion known as "cheek." Perhaps it was the prevalence of this idea that lately made a Dublin coachbuilder so suit himself to circumstances as I to send out to a paper published in Otago throo puff paragraphs, with the calm intimation that tlatir insertion would oblige him. It is impossible fchaV innate impudence could have suggested this course of procedure to the coachbuilder. No, ho was, 1 expect, endeavoring to fall in with the roportecr mvvs of the colony. And in this connection may X notice the charitable interest which it is the custom of some newspapers to toko in the financial affaire of their neighbors. In order to cahn this interest may I bo permitted to notice, that if the editor of the "Suoozor," let us say, would pay his subscription, now due for several years to tho "Snorter," the "Snorter | would.be materially assisted towards becoming a remunerative concern.

A correspondent writes to me :—" How is it that you who week by week instruct and amuse a delighted public, and deal out praise and blame exactly ai it is deserved, have omitted to notico the important addition which tho City Council has made to the enjoyment to be found in a, drive 'round the Slip.' I took

the carriage in that direction one day this week. The day being fine and my mind occupied with an admirable speech I had heard tho day previous from, —but I won't make seventy aud seven eloquent gentlemen jealous, —I fell asleep. I was awoke, iu the midst of a dream that I had succeeded in raising a four million loan on my personal security, by an exclamation from my coachman. I remember Cologne, the suburbs of Constantinople, and various other places famed for the manufacture of odor de millc flairs. Bless you, our City Council has established, on the very high road it may be said, a depot which beats them all hollow. Thus, oh my Vagrant, do our City Fathers improve almost the only drive we have in our neighborhood. And yet you have not moved that public which imbibes wisdom and mirth at your feet to pass a vote of thanks to our municipal representatives. How, I say with Artemus, is this thus '<"

[The style of the above is not to my taste ; its compliments to me are quite undeserved, yet it deserves such publicity as insertion in this column can afford it. The matter of which it treats is largely a matter of taste, aud in such things City Councils have, as a rule, execrable tastes.]