INTELLIGENT VAGRANT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4541, 9 October 1875, Page 2

INTELLIGENT VAGRANT.

(From the New Zealand Mail),

QuLs scit an adjiciant hodiernse crastina summa TemporaDl Snperi.—Horace. | The recent criminal sessions of the Supreme Court have not been devoid of; interest. .Amongst other matters worthy, of note, was the statement by a lawyer of a fact. A gentleman who had.the.misfortune to have stolen some £lO in bank notes, had the good fortune to have an eloquent lawyer, who enlarged, on the difficulty of identifying bank notes owing to their forming ;the current money of the country. The lawyer pointed out how New Zealand differed from England, where there were no £1 notes, and where sovereigns were used instead. And. he said to the jury: "Gentlemen, what is current here, is not gold." He was perfectly right, arguing from his then locality. Gold is not current here. The less valuable metal brass answers -all purposes.

A correspondent draws my attention to a recent article in the Illustrated London News, giving a history of Sir Julius Vogel's career, and notices that' the London paper mistakes the colony of Yictpria for one of the provinces of New Zealand; This kind j of ignorance is truly deplorable, I know; but I fancy' that we quite equalise the matter, for it was only on Thursday that a member of the House of Representatives, on being asked what he thought of the disturbances in Servia, said there was no fear of its spreading to the other settlements in the Waikato, and that so spon as Parliament was prorogued, Sir Donald McLean would put it all right. I have said that the criminal proceedings at the Supreme Court weve not uninteresting; but I am sorry to add that they were also not devoid of injustice. A man diddled a lawyer out of £SO, and got nine months. Looking at the frightful difficulty of the task which this man accomplished, and the necessarily extreme rarity of the offence, I think a reprimand would have been quite enough for him. That is my public opinion. Privately, I should feel inclined to get up a testimonial in recognition of the talent which could have accomplished such a feat. Those who are the general objects of journalistic wrath remove themselves from treatment by me. Therefore I have nothing to say about Mr. Brissenden, as it is not my duty to hit men who aro down. But I may be permitted to "make a little statement." First and foremost, though it is true that Mr. Brissenden has broken the last and greatest commandment, " Thou shall not be found out," that is not, as some would plead it is, to be advanced as an excuse for him. Because five hundred transgressors remain undetected, is no reason why one who is caught should escape. Let me commend this to those who argue that Mr. Brissenden should be stuck to by Ministers because they have within their realm five hundred as bad as he. Next let me suggest that Mr. Brissenden re-gazette his occupation as " the exercise of Quixotic ideas of honor and benevolence and the abstract principles of justice." I

It is too much the custom to tell stories to the disadvantage, of servant girls. They are not all lazy, useless, and impertinent. A lady in this city complained to her husband that she might almost as well be without a general servant as have Polly Ann, at 10s. a-week. The gentleman, with the decision of his sex, and a recognition of aristocratic idioms, said, " Sack her." The lady communicated her fate to Polly Ann ; but the girl had a soul above such things, for she answered that she had no intention of leaving. She was certain that she would never get again so easy and comfortable a place, or a mistress who had to r appeal to her husband before getting rid of a domestic. And Polly Ann remains mistress—mistress of the situation.. .

The danger of letting a sailor loose with a tar brush is proverbial. My friend Captain Quid, of the topsail schoouor Sophinisba, has a pretty, cottage in Sligo-street. It recently occurred to him that a coat of tar would improve his chimney. So when he was last in port ho sent one of his men up to _ the cottage, with the necessary materials and directions to tar the chimney. The sailor got through the job in a very short time, and not liking to have a walk for a triflo, began

putting tar on portions of the house that he thought needed it. Having drawn off to observe the effect of this, he found that it was decidedly patchy ; so he began to fill up. And when Captain Quid came home in the evening his house was tarred over, roof and all, and the eldest Miss Quid was in hysterics because she was going out to a ball that night, and had wasted a dozen bottles of scent trying ineffectually to disguise the smell of tar that stuck to her.

One of the Government whips received the following letter from the wife of an M.H.R. on Thursday :—" Sir, —My husband will not be at the House to-day, and I think you ought to be ashamed of yourselves to ask him. If you think that I am going to let Ferdinand Augustus go and discuss such a horrid question as that which Mr. Reid proposes,y ou will find yourselves mistaken; I can assure you. It's all very well to talk of the Employment of Females Act, but that is only a disguise. Ferdinand Augustus himself admitted that the principal topic would be whether poor women should or should not work in chemises. Ferdinand did not say chemises, but I substitute that for the coarse expression current amongst you. I think you ought to be all abolished as a parcel of low indelicate fellows. Yours, &c, Anna Makia -." It cost a little time to understand what this lady meant, but it was at last thought to be connected with Mr. Reid's proposal that the Mosgiel Woollen Company should be enabled to work their employes in shifts.

An American auctioneer, who writes under the name of "Josh Billings," makes capital out of hi 3 inability to spell correctly. I hope Mr. J. H. Wallace does not intend to recommend himself to the notice of the Wellington country districts electors by the same means. But it looks as if he did. I notice that he recently issued a " catalouge" of pictures which he proposed selling. ; Amongst the pictures was one described as " Water foul." It may be that Mr. Wallace is anxious to show that he suffers.from the epidemic prevalent amongst legislators. Major Atkinson is to be waited on next week by a deputation of persons such as will cause him some slight surprise. In the discussion on Sir George Grey's free breakfast table proposals the other night, the Colonial Treasurer said that it was all nonsense to talk of servant girls paying Customs duties by their consumption of tea and sugar, that it was their employers who really paid the duties on those articles. ■; One of the first great principles of political economy is, I believe, that all duties on articles of consumption are paid by the consumers. The servant girls are about to wait on Major Atkinson to teach him this. " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings," &c. 'The candidate for the representation of the borough of Eatanswill in the British House of Commons endeared himself to the electors by shaking hands with twenty men ready washed for the purpose, and kissing several babies similarly prepared for the occasion. Sir George Grey, who takes for his model in all things the British Constitution and the British Parliament, is not above taking a hint from the practices at British elections, in order to endear himself to the people. He solemnly stopped to pat on their heads a little boy and girl who were playing at making railroads'in the gutter one day this week, and, after inquiring their ages, kissed the little girl, and assured her that it was for her and those like her that he was now working. To his astonishment,' the little boy said, "Well, if you works like father does you aint much good. He is a politician, he is, and all we gets for breakfast is abuse of the Government."