THE INTELLIGENT VAGRANT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 4999, 2 April 1877, Page 3

THE INTELLIGENT VAGRANT.

(From the New Zealand Mail.)

Quis soit an adjiciant hodiorme orastina sumnue Tempera Hi Superi.— Horace. Now that the excitement of a contested election has passed away and nought but a stranded whale is left, it may not be inappropriate to mention a few little election anecdotes, the result of a trifling experience in such affairs. The anecdotes I put as briefly as possible, as the object of each is to convey a high moral lesson in the plainest manner. When J. J. Casey beat Macpher-on for Mandurang (Victoria) in 1863,1 had the honor and profit of being agent for the former, who was the Government candidate. A number of voters were coming from Melbourne to poll for the latter. The railway by which they were coming was a Government one. Their train broke down at Ravenswood, and they arrived in Sandhurst in time to be too late to record their votes. Moral.—Even the machinery of Government will sometimes get out of gear. When the first electoral roll for the Thames was made out malicious people said it contained the names of over 500 gentlemen who had never got nearer New Zealand than Ireland. And yet at election time everyone of them voted. Moral. —Poll early ani often. At an election for Villiers and Heytesbury (Victoria), once a great Melbourne capitalist had promised to supply the funds required on one side. No funds came, and frantic telegrams to Melbourne only produced the invariable answer, “ Blank still tight in his cellar.” Moral—“ Put not your trust in Princes.” The time Beamish and Fagan beat Wood and Carroll fot the city of Cork, 200 poor freemen had board, lodging, and drinking for nothing for a month. That was when the voting was open. And yet there are people who defend the ballot. There is no moral to this anecdote. I have hunted for one, but cannot get any to come into appropriate connection. For a long time Bandon was a pocket borough in the Bernard (Lord Bandou’s) family. The general answer of electors to the question—Who do you vote for ?—was plain aud pious—“ For the Lord.” Moral—“ Kind hearts are more than coronets.” At Wangarei, near Auckland, a gentleman upon whose way of voting hung the decision of thirty others, did cot arrive in town on pollingday. He had to ride from his place some miles along the beach. Whilst riding, four patriots met him, persuaded him to alight, and headed him up in a cask along with a piece of beef, a loaf of bread, some mustard, a bottle of whisky, and a jar of water. They left plenty of breathing-holes in the cask, and released him a 4 o’clock. lam thinking over the moral of this story. If the Inspector of Nuisances would walk as far as the corner of Tory-street and Gour-tenay-place, and at the same time carry his nose in front of him, he might become aware of a festering mass of rubbish shot there, the stenches from which have already caused two cases of typhoid fever in the neighborhood. Mr. Travers’ supporters worked hard. One of them on Monday offered a “ line” of flour to a customer at £1 a ton under market quotations, exacting from the customer at the. same time a promise to vote for Travers. They tell me that a large amount of religious feeling has been evoked by electoral matters lately. In respect to this let me give a little advice as to the best method of crushing out religious feeling in anyone. Let that anyone be enrolled a member of the Irish police, and be battered with paving-stones indifferently by Protestants and Roman Catholics, and if he does not come to look upon all religions distinction as mere matters of opinion call me a Christian.

Touching that little question of the Pope’s health Mr. Travers explains that a gentleman's health should not have been put before that of a lady. A question—How have the ladies whose husbands were present settled this small matter of etiquette ? Mr. Travers entertains the gentlemen who elected him. A report of the entertainment is the nicest item I can promise for next week Touching the whale, I am authorised to inform the coxswain of the pilot boat’s crew|that the purchaser of the whale does not consider himself bound to carry the clutch of Brahmapootra eggs all the way to the pilot station. If the coxswain will call upon the purchaser, the latter will fulfil his part of the contract. It is a very great shame to say that Mr. Moeller, when a member of the City Council, was not eloquent. Why, I myself heard him say, “ I propose that the committee consist of the whole Council.”