A VOICE FROM TROGLODYTE CREEK.—No. II.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 306, 22 November 1873, Page 3

A VOICE FROM TROGLODYTE CREEK.— No. 11.

Sib, — 'All the claims have stopped working, owing to the supply of paper collars being exhausted. You know one cannot get along without those very necessary mining . appliances, and puggeries are not a good substitute for them; besides, they are out of date. lam not aware whether work will be resumed when the brown Holland envelopes, or night-gowns, that people wrap themselves in (thereby looking like shaking Quakers) arrive ; but, at all events, the effort will be made as soon as they are in receipt of them. The signs of the near approach of Christmas are making themselves apparent. The spirited members of our local band are already practising the soul-stirring music of Auber, Meyerbeer, . and -.SehuJ.fcfc (whoever he may be). It is in. contemj>lftt£oji to provide them with new instrura,ents,i»ud"«»-4arge order will be forwarded •f6jj> iffewsi ffews harps, trombones, and tin wlustles, not forgetting a quantity of tambourines, to make the thing complete. Whilst our sporting gentry have already foregathered at Shingle Creek, and initiated their Spring Meeting by a hunt after Trig J. Although the attendance was not numerous, the sport was excellent. The only mounted member of the hunt made Bplendid running after the invisible quarry, taking every obstacle in a style that never was equalled by any modern Nimrol \ although, from the frantic manner in which the legs and wings of the gentleman were displayed whilst clearing an enormous waterrace — eighteen inches wide — one would have thought it was a flapping turtle in convulsions j and the pigskin with which he for the nonce scraped acquaintance had not been thoroughly curried, from the uneasy manner in which he seemed striving to stand in his stirrups. However, tbe country had been mapped by a master who showed a judicious knowledge -of the requirements of tQe chase, which proved to be a bootless one,, as the solftary hunter declared that Trig J had stolen away, and the country had been dragged with a red herring, while Ms nascal promontory was not long 'enough to pick up the lost soent. White the running continued, the 'excitement was so intense that one member of the hunt who had procured a half -boiled egg, "he, having an eye to the future, was astonished 'to find at the finish that he had hatched the ovum, and it had brought forth an idea which he intends availing himself of at the next .stting of the Provincial Council. Xbace hajj been a .decided tendency of late

among our' mosfc prominent men to' seek fresher.fields and pastures new. Of course, any of our number leaving us causes regrets, &c. ; but the last " dear departed " is one whose like we ne'er may look upon. Half the district is in mourning, and I am sorry that the announcement was not made sooner, so that some readier pen than mine might have accomplished the task of writing this elegy. IN MBHOBIUM. "Turn, gentle stranger, turn again, and drop a a gentle tear, For David, who has left a blank in frowning Benger's sphere. An earnest politician he, whose rousing elocution Was used to curse the squattoerftts, and d— n tkd^Jonstitution. Armstrong attacks pur aching teeth when e'er this way he comes ; With strong arm too, our David true, would straighten back our gums ; His shriily pipe at morn and night its tootle ne'er relaxed. Woe ! woe ! the day he's gone away. Oh ! may his end be— waxcl." Thkodobius Glttndebbutz.