THE INTELLIGENT VAGRANT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4596, 13 December 1875, Page 2

THE INTELLIGENT VAGRANT.

(From the New Zealand Mail.) Quis scit an adjicisint hodiernaa crastina summ® Tempora Di Superi.—Horace. Under some circumstances it seems cruel to tell thosepoorimmigrants who do not get on that their failures are attributable to their inability to adapt themselves to colonial requirements. That is a very nice idea in theory, but is very unfair in practice. Amongst the last ship load of immigrants was a gentleman whom I shall for the sake of identification call Mr. Chikaleery Bloak. His occupation was to sell whelks in the Borough. Now Providence, not having in it 3 eye the immigration and public works scheme, forgot to stock the New Zealand waters with whelks, and the Acclimatisation Society forgot all about them in thinking of hares and pheasants. So that really there was a fair excuse for C. B.'s finding it difficult to employ himself. But he was not one of your desponding class of colonists, and therefore he struck out a line for himself. He invested his capital in clothes brushes, and started for the Hutt course the night before the races, determined to make money the next day by brushing the clothes of dusty visitors. Now, with the flood-gates of Heaven opened as they have been lately.it will be unnecessary to point out how C.B.'s energy was baffled by causes over which he had no control. But even now he does not altogether despair. He has appealed to Mr. Travers' well-known sympathy with the working man, and is now taking around cards soliciting votes for that gentleman. I have not heard how he has got on in this last line of business.^ *' No, sir." (I am addressimr my observations to the editor of this paper, who has written to me to say that he has heard that I have been reading leading articles about newspaper companies and have been made melancholy thereby.) No, sir; I have not the smallest fear about the permanence of the institution with which I have the honor to be at present connected. You have not yet come down to pigeons, and until you do that I shall stick to you. You will probably ask me for an explanation of the words " come down to pigeons," and I cheerfully afford one in anticipation. I have before me a letter from the secretary of the Daily Southern Cross Company (Limited), Auckland, offering to dispose of a few young pigeons at £1 per bird. Were I writing for that paper I should feel frightened. Things must be queer when they come to sell-

intr pigeons. If it were some goslings now, I cotdd easily understand their having a good few of surplus stock on hand; but pigeons subtest selling even their supporters to raise the wind. So, Mr. Editor, you need not be m any apprehension about me. Until you come to selling pigeons I shall not carry my wares to another market. , The enterprising proprietors of the Satmday Advertiser fpubUshed in Tta**X*) — their intention to give a prize for-ladies for tae best essay on "dress." From th.pw«; mode adopted by ladies when supposed to be, m their most careful style, I should have thought that "undress" wild have been a more fittiU word to describe the subject of the Ssay° And here lam reminded of two stones nToriginal, not new, but perhaps interesting. The late Archbishop Whateley was once pointed .. out a lady m evening dress, asked if he had ever seen anythin" like it before. "Not since I was weaSed," said he. During the progress of the last American war, a Southern lady and a Northern gentleman stayed at the same hotel in Havana. The lady, influenced by patriotism, never lost an opportunity of publicly insulting the gentleman, and, of course, being a gentleman, he could take no notice when, insulted At the dinner table the lady always appeared in a dress displaying a very large amount of her personal charms. One day she took a green fig from a dish, and handing it to her enemy, said as contemptuously as possible, " A fi" for vou, sir !" At last the gentleman s opportunity had come. He reached some leaves from the same dish, and said, "Thank you; fig leaves for you madam." Those observations of yours, Mr. Williams, in reply to a letter about the landing of the Stormbird's passengers were characterised by a delicate and pointed logic that did you innnite credit. The question at issue was whether certain passengers had been inconvenienced or not, and there is no doubt that your capability to pay twenty shillings in the pound was a matter of considerable import under the circumstances. So it would be if I were to say that I never paid anything in the pound, which is my boast. But Mr. Williams ! whisper, dear, "If some of that twenty shillings had been expended long ao-o in an extra fee at school for manners, don t you think you could have conducted your argument without throwing his bankruptcy m your opponent's teeth." I do not mean to assert that we have lost that qui redire nescit, cum perit, pudor. Except myself, I believe most people are moral, and, therefore, the remarks I am about to make have reference, not to morality, but rather to inconsistency. As thus. I am anxious to know how it is that your decorous ladies who object so much to their male relatives and friends going to theatres to see actresses in burlesque and scanty clothing, find no difficulty in attending swimming matches where they contemplate in very close propinquity gentlemen in the briefest eostumes possible. Let me not be mistaken. I see no harm in swimming matches, or in ladies attending them. All I say is, that if it be true that "the fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets," there is quite as much danger for the female fly at swimming matches as for the male fly at burlesques. Much to my edification I have seen Dr. Eedwood bless a bell, and heard him speak of church bells afterwards with eloquence, and no small degree of truth. Heaven forgive me, however, if his sermon suggested something that I fear he was not thinking of. That was, that had he told us something about certain modern church belles he might have done good. Eor listening to his excellent words about the solemn associations we couple with the church bells of byegone times, I thought out the following verses about our modem CHTjBCH belles. When matins and vespers were common to all. And their bells were a token in cottage and hall, Then men went to worship and women to pray, Where the church bells were sounding a heavenward Eat the church belle that calls us in these latter days, Whom we think ol while hastening our Maker to praise, Plays the devil with hearts in the holiest fane, And is tricked out in azure and mmisseline de tome.

In olden times men toiled in heat and in glare,_ lyhilst swarthy their faces and matted their hair; And a reckoning in fall for their lahor they found, If the church bell they fashioned was true in its sound. But now, 'tis at toilettes that men labor hard, In the eyes of some church belle to find their reward, And their belle has been fashioned in want and in By women who worked at her mousseline de laine. In the bells of the old days the true metal rang And poets and minstrels their praises oft sang, TJnfickle and constant, unyielding to time, _ Through centuries sounding their worshipping chime. But the minstrel who sings of our present church belle Can sing of no metal about her save—well. The watch springs that under her bustle are laying And give shape to her panier and mousseline de laine. And if poets and minstrels would fain have their rhymes On the church belles who swing in these modern times. Sure, with constancy ne'er can they couple their theme 3, But with fancies as changeful as swift running streams. And it is not in belfry our church belle now swings, But in galop and deuxtemps, while the arm that rings, Bound her waist is close pressed, and its owner is saying— ~ „ hope I'm not crashing your mousseline ae lame. A fearful probability—one of which, should eventuate, I can scarcely apprehend the consequences. If Mr. Hutchison be elected Mayor, Councillors Gillon and George mil instantly resign. And yet there are people who, knowing this, say they hope to goodness every one will vote for Hutchison.