THE INTELLIGENT VAGRANT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5043, 23 May 1877, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE INTELLIGENT VAGRANT.

(From tho New Zealand Mail.) Qui scit an adjicianb hodierme crastina sunmue Tempera D 1 Superb— Horace. In reference to that paragraph about a clerk of a R.M. Court taking fees for making out applications for licenses, transfers, &c., for publicans, Mr. Eb. Baker, clerk to the E.M. Court hero, was good enough orally to inform the editor of this paper that he, Mr. Eb. Baker, was alluded to. The editor told Mr. Eb. Baker that he was quite wrong ; but Mr. Baker persisted that he was right, because, he said, he had bad a letter from the Minister for Justice, ordering him to take no more such fees, though ho had been in the habit of doing so since 1859 ; and to his regret, five minutes after getting the letter he had to refuse a proffered guinea. The editor says he was unaware from Mr. Eb. Baker’s manner which had grieved him the most, the paragraph or the loss of the guinea. Let me suggest a mode of making matters right. Let Mr. Eb. Baker give any guineas he may have received in the manner mentioned since 1859 to the Benevolent Society. It is to be wished that our City Council was like that of Hokitika. The latter had recently to pass a resolution, instructing the Public Works Committee to take steps for abating the noise made by the members of a literary society who met upstairs on Council nights. The former, when assembled as a Wharf Committee, make so much row that the chronometers of the ships alongside the wharf are put out of order. Says the editor of the Wanganui Chronicle in a recent issue : “ Twenty years ago to-day commenced the mutiny at Delhi. How vividly the recollection of those dark and | troublesome times still remains.” Having read this, I went into tho street with a mournful face, and meeting Mr. Howard Wallace, said, “ Twenty years ago,” &c. Mr. Wallace at once said, “ I remember those dark and troublesome times quite well ; hut you’re wrong, old fellow ; it wasn’t at Delhi the war began, it was at the Hutt, you know, that the natives first got insolent.” 1 gave Mr. Wallace up, and tackled Captain Elareo, late of the Feejee Fusiliers, who, when I repeated to him the words of the editor of the Chronicle, said, “ Yes, by Jove ! old Johnny Heke gave us a good deal of trouble at the Bay of Islands. I’ve got a ball in my .” I didn’t give Captain Flareo time to finish, hut tried it on young Sprouts, a gentleman horn in the colony, whose cleverness at coloring meerschaum pipes is proverbial, and he said, “ Delhi ? Delhi; now where the is Delhi?” From thi“ I concluded that when the editor wrote “how vividly the recollection of those dark and troublesome times still remains,” he was verging on the poetical. I see by an advertisement in the Post that someone wants to sell “ a quiet handsome gentleman’s pony.” The fact of a gentleman being quiot and handsome might be a recommendation for himself; hut how his own possession of these qualifications can ho held to recommend his pony, I am at a loss to find out. Little arguments will arise as to whether the news just received of the Kusso-Turkish war is or is not important. It is pleasant to know that these arguments need arise no more. The editor of the Post settles the question by hoisting, or not hoisting, a red flag. That decides the thing finally, and prevents altercation.

As a person supposed to know something,'! have been frequently asked of late, “ Who are the Cossacks ? ” Up to yesterday.-1 had'bocn unable to glean any personal information that would enable me to give a satisfactory answer to the question ; but at last I did hear an anecdote which may help to clear up a doubtful matter. During the famous retreat from Moscow of Napoleon’s army, the Cossacks hovered around the French and helped to dot the snow with the invaders’ bodies. One day they wore more than ordinarily harassing to the rear-guard, and, led by a man singularly small and wiry, where all were so small and wiry, they became bolder and bolder in their attacks. A French sous-lieu-tenant of cavalry at last made a dash at the leader, whom his temerity had brought many yards in front of his followers. The Cossack went down, but was carried off by his companions, who came up before the Frenchman could give the coup dc (/race. As the wounded denizen of the steppes was being taken away, flung across the saddle-bow of a comrade, he was heard to cry, “ Holy smut, but the villia has kilt mo.” It is thought that the above exclamation may give some trace of the nationality of the Cossacks. Amongst the fruits of our native industry and enterprise in New Zealand, I am pleased to note “Bachelors of Arts.” They are turned out by the New Zealand University, and from the calendar of that admirable institution, recently issued, I notice that during the few years it has been in existence it has admitted ad eundem ymdum a good number, and has absolutely of its own exertions produced two. Will some one fond of figures find out how much this couple of interesting conversions of the raw material into the highly finished article has cost the country ? There was a pretty little leader in each of the evening papers on Friday on “ The War.” They were identical in every respect, which shows either that two great literary men hit on the same ideas and expressed them in the same language simultaneously, or that the two great literary men borrowed from the same source when writing out their leaders with a pair of scissors. I have been requested by the contractor for the new building of the Mutual Provident Society to return ilia humble and hearty thanks to the gentlemen who so kindly tried to put out the burning of some bags of nnslacked lime with cold water the other night. The contractor says the gentlemen had not been putting out their own burning with cold water.

A little over a twelvemonth ago a particularly goodnatured newspaper man was making himself busy announcing with glee the approaching dismissal of the whole literary staff of a certain journal, he having a prejudice against the whole literary staff, because ho had not been employed as a member of it. Well, the whirligig of thingumbob brings its what-d’ye-cali-its, for this same goodnatured newspaper man, I learn, got the sack and a bag to take it home in from another paper quite lately and most unexpectedly. Of course, those whom better than twelvemonths ago ho endeavored to injure now sympathise with him.

There is a churchwarden critic of a milk-and-water character connected with the Evening Post, who rejoices in doing two tilings—writing paragraphs about vestries, and discovering typographical mistakes in other papers, on which he founds jocosity of the most vapid description. This pleasant gentleman descended weakly upon a mistake in the New Zealand Tisikh, which substituted the word “annual” for “ usual ” in referring to the monthly meeting of the Wellington Teachers’ Association. Ho was as exquisitely funny over the mistake as a mute at a funeral might be, and yet in his own paper ho informed us that “On Monday next, it being the festival of Ascension Day, or Holy Thursday,” &o. The first time I ever know Holy Thursday happen on Monday. A horrible tale! The office of a newspaper for the promulgation of teetotal principles is in the same block of buildings as a new hotel, and the block is so constructed that at first sight every door loading into it from the street seems to belong to the hotel. These cironmstances, I suppose, caused half-a-dozen jovial gentlemen one day this week to intrude upon the teetotal editor in the privacy of his office, and to request that he would serve them with drinks all round. They said subsequently that if his usual drink was cold, his language, at least, was “ warm with.”

In one town at least in this colony the Clerk of the Resident Magistrate's Court has been in the habit of making applications for publican’s licenses, and for transfers and renewals of the same, and he has not done these things for nothing. I am informed that a hard-hearted licensed victualler has written to the Minister of Justice, complaining that tile clerk in his case touted for business, and endeavored to take business out of the hands of a solicitor. “ What is tho town, and who is the clerk?” you ask, "Well, now, those are

exactly the questions which I leave to the imagination of readers. One of the evening papers recently contained a sufficiently spiteful paragraph concerning tho issue of the war extras by its morning and its evening contemporary. It may bo as well to state the truth about this matter. The proprietors of all three papers agreed to charge for extras. Tho spiteful paper has not yet got the machinery necessary for printing them rapidly, so it has not issued them. It would have been as well to have said this honestly at once. I do not know whether certain singular words of command in use in the Russian army in 1856 are still prevalent. In those days, when a regiment or any largo body of troops was paraded for inspection by some great man, the command given on the arrival of the great man was “Be glad.” In other words, the autocratic Government of Eussia was presumed to control and regulate even the emotions of its subjects. Of course jolly tars ashore are splendid fellows, but somehow or another good respectable hotelkeepers in Wellington have recently cause to regard them with holy horror. Eor certain reasons they must he let have their own way, and their own way is frequently very unpleasant. As, for instance, when they insist upon staying all night in the dining-room, ransack the house for cold provisions, break a few chairs and some crockery, drink up a lot of liquor, fall asleep, and in the morning “ fold their tents like the Arabs, and silently steal away,” none daring to stop them, and they not caring to go through the ceremony of paying. I have, at one time or another, road a good deal about insurance agents, from which I have inferred that some of those who write about that interesting class of God’s creation occasionally sacrifice truth on the altar of fancy. However, personal experience has taught me something of insurance agents, and in consequence of a case which has come under my ov.n observation! lately, I am prepared to believe that to fulfil the office of one a man needs to be specially gifted. A young gentleman engagedin a mercantile house was visited one day recently by a person of affable manners, and easy conversational powers, who asked the young gentleman his name, and inquired kindly after the health of his relations. Mr. Ghiokenweed (as I shall call him for purposes of distinction) gave the required information, and hoped his visitor was quite well. He then ascertained that he was talking to an active agent of the Gatheremin Life Insurance Company. Chickonweed began very shortly to feel that he had known the agent from his infancy, and that the latter had complete possession of such ideas as he had managed to acoumulatein the courseofyears. Saidtheagent, “ You ought to insure your life,” and promised that he would settle the business for him, adding, in a friendly spirit, that it would be better to trust the thing to him than to some unscrupulous party whose only object was personal gain. He said ho would write to the head office and propose him, and then went away before Chickenweed had time to say that ho didn’t want to insure. About a fortnight afterwards the agent made his appearance in the office, and rushing up to our friend with a countenance full of joy, and grasping Chickenweed’s hand, said “My dear boy, let mo congratulate you; consider yourself the luckiest man in tho world. You are accepted ! No other man could, I assure you, have managed the affair so completely as I have done.” Chickenweed mentally agreed with this last remark, but was too much confused to make any observation. He was then told to come away and clinch the magnificeut bargain at once, lest the Gatheremin Company should repent of their decision. Chickeuweed went, and put his name to a document. He has not since seen the agent, but has contributed money to the Gatheremin Company, and now begins to look forward to being SO years of age, when he will be entitled to £IOO, should he keep up the payments regularly. It may possibly he considered that Chickenweed was a little unsophistocated, but at the same time I do not think it will be doubted that the agent was possessed of “jjoints” which qualified him for his office.

According to Otago views the Wellington merchants must he the most self-sacrificing set of men in the world. Happening in conversation with an Otago man to notice that the Customs revenue at Bunodin had decreased, and at Wellington had increased during the past quarter, the Otago man said : “ Oh, that’s easily accounted lor. The AVellington merchants import goods and keep them in their warehouses merely for the purpose of swelling the local Customs revenue.” If this be true, the Wellington merchants, if they ve not brains, have at least plenty of money to spare.