RANDOM NOTES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 103, 19 August 1876, Page 2

RANDOM NOTES.

BY MAGGUFFIN.

" A duel's amang ye takin* notes, An' faith he'il prent 'em." —Burns.

"A RACE WITHOUT LEGS." I think printers, from the time of Caxton to the present day, have borne more for the misdeeds of others than any other class of men breathing. Should a correspondent favor a journal with a contribution —the said correspondent's knowledge of Dr. Johnson being as limited as his acquaintance with Liiidley Murray, and his ideas of punctuation and orthography on a par with his mastery of Sanscrit—the unfortunate printer is made the scapegoat for all the shortcomings. Should the editor make a slip in the Latin quotation which embellishes his leader, the stereotyped phrase "by an unfortunate printer's error," &c., is brought into requisition. If the adjective, however, were intended to apply to the printer —a3 written—and not to the error, there would be very often more truth in the statement than the public imagine, or the writer designs. However, although the Knights of the Stick and Rule are very often innocent of much that is placed upon their shoulders, it must not be imagined that they are immaculate, the following being an instance to the contrary. In an office not a hundred miles from Oamaru, a member of the craft was employed, the journal in question being the scene of his first operations after partaking of the blessings bestowed by free immigration. No doubt there are but few of my readers who have not read Artemus Ward's "Guide Book" to his Panorama of the Frairies, and laughed over that particular portion where a horse is seen careering wildly over the waving waste. The showman evidently had his doubts as to whether the artist hud conveyed to canvas a likeness striking enough to cause a recognition of the animal represented, so he very prudently appended a foot-noto with the intimation, " Th's is a horse." I do not know whether Stiver-Buck (for that wa3 the aristocratic name by which the new chum wished to be known) ha*. 1 , ever read Avtemus Ward, or whether lie be entitled to receive the credit for originality, however, I will relate the circumstance, and leave it to my readers to determine the point at ~s.rae. An "ad." had been har.d'.d giving notica of a race meeting, and A3 overseer, knowmg that Stiver w?~ n si ,-anjer, marked it in the manner it should be 33 i. Wishing to irsart the usual i'lus'.ro tion of the struggle home between the horses, but being without thewood-enfc, hemp-rksd it as follows: "BILTOIsr ZZT - r.ACES," and beneath tbe two strokes put the words " These are the horses," thereby intimating that an amount of space should be left for the insertion of the cut whsn it could be obtained. The new arrival set to work, but, although he himself made a splendid " start," going off with a plunge, an horn* had come and gone before "he could get his horses into line." Whether the interesting stranger was under the impression that bsing now at the Antipodes a wide dissimilarity existed in the formation of such quadrupeds to those at Home, it would not be prudent to say, but when the proof was pulled, it was found that he had spared neither time, labor, nor skill in making a perfect fac-simile of the two parallel strokes, underneath which for the enlightenment of all he had fixed, " These are the horses." As the parallel lines were twins to a hair, it was quite evident that they had run a " dead heat," so the overseer humanely considering that both they and Mr. Stiver had nobly done their duty, and might rest from their labors, took the matter into his own hands, trotted out a fresh team, dispensing with the legless equine contestants. ' As -might be expected, the little incident was not lost sight of by his companions, and the amount of " attention "bestowed upon him brought on a high nervous fever, which ended in a total collapse. Magginnis—from whom I heard the story —had him decently buried, Hibernically waked, and composed an " Elegy in Memoriam," which I subjoin :

IN HIEIHGRIAM—STIVER-BUCKi + {[AFTER GOLDSMITH—A LONG WAY.] Come sorrowing typos, drop a tear, Poor Buck is called away ; But had lie lived another year He were not dead to-day. A man who'd scorn to do a wrong, Or neighbor's goods to keep; And no one ever heard his tongue—— When he was fast asleep. No more he'il wield the rule and stick Yet still it's come to pass, That tho' a type he ne'er shall pick, Yet still he's gone to "grass." But now he's dead, and wears crown He strove so hard to win ; He never saw a poor man down But he would "take him in." Yet strange it is, though Buck is gone, He's dead but in his name, For though his spirit's flown aloft, He's left behind his " frame." And hard 'twill be to fill the place Of one who ne'er would shirk, For when on piece he'd "stick" to "case," His "rule" being always "Work." Give to Caesar what's his due, And keep but your's alone, So, as Buck is dead, I know it's true The devil has got his own. So brother typos, pray take heed, And list to what I say, The printer owns a devil on earth But below it's the other way.

Magginnis and myself paid a visit to the Mechanics' Institute a few evenings since, in search of materials for a stray " Note," or two, and I was about leaving in despair when my eye rested upon a perfect Godsend. Snugly ensconsed amongst a mass of fiction there rested in apparent indifference to the sacrilege " The Book of Common Prayer," being hedged in on the right by "Sam Slick," while " Robinson Crusoe " acted as a supporter on the left. In an incautious moment I seized Magginnis by the arm, and in something of a " pig's whisper " informed him that I had secured a splendid par. I had, however, reckoned without my host, for the wily old gentleman who holds the office of Secretary quickly approached, and with a smile, "Child-like and bland,"intimated that he had caught the remark, was sorry to cut the ground from under my feet, but that the particular row at which I was then looking had yet to be sorted and numbered. Imagine my vexation at being so done by the ancient party, for of course after such an explanation it were impossible to utilize it. I merely now mysteriously hint at the fact to show what difficulties I have occasionally to contend with in my hunt after Randomical pabulum, and how much I could have made out of it were I allowed to touch on the subject.