JEMMY CHATTERBOX TO THE HEADHITTER.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 16, 20 April 1867, Page 3

JEMMY CHATTERBOX TO THE HEADHITTER.

Sue, —I want you to know that lam alive, all alive 0, and so is my Missus, and the childurn, but its plaguey hard times wi’ em, because I can’t get my wheat ground no how, and in no kind of manner. When I speaks to my fellow-townsmen about being alive, and getting a mill to grind their own corn, I hears lots of chaff, but nothing to the purpuss, so I goes home again, and 1 sits down, and I says to my missus, that’s my wife you know, whatever shall I do with our corn that we have growed, thirty bushels to the acre, neither more nor less ?” “ Why ” says she, they be a going to open the mill at Papawai, I hear, and give sixty pounds of flour for every sixty of wheat besides the siftings.” 11 That’s impossible,’, says I, “ and what we don’t want, we only want what is fair and just, and what we are entitled to, and a fine chance there is for any one to butter his bread who would commence the undertaking again. Besides Missus, what’s the use of the mill if we can’t get to it, neither on horseback, nor on footiback, nor in a carriage, consequently what’s the use of it, I says again ? Did’nt a team of bullocks tother day drive into one of tho water holes and was never heerd on again for a week, and was’nt the driver exhibited as a curiosity at all the houses in Grey town? Did’nt the'people say that a crocodile had been discovered when they found him ? Some said he was a real halligatur, they knowed he was by his teeth. Now 1 should like to know, missus, what yon wood say if you seed your husband coming back from the mill in that there state.” “ Well Jemmy,” says she, “ there’s no doubt under those ere circumstances that you’d dirty my bed clothes most considerably, and it would take a week to polish you again, besides wasting the soap and the water, and the grog I should give you to drive the cold out.” “ How is it Jemmy,” says she,” that the Greytown people do allow their rodes to get in such an unpassible state ?” “ Why missus,” says I, “the Greytown people have no rodes, and they prefer walking in the mud to having them, because they don’t like to pay a trifle for their own comfort and convenience. They be sleepy hanimals about Greytown, they sleeps too long in the morning because they heats too much o’ nights, and they washes down what they heats with stuff that is’nt recommended by the Temperance Society’s. That’s what they does! And why do they do it upon sich an hextensive and hexpensive scale then,” says my missus ? “ Why,” says I, “ because there be four public houses in Greytown, when there be only business enough for two, and therefore out of pure and unadulterated friendship they drinks to keep the publicans respectable, and make them pay their dets. When the Magistrates granted ’em the glorious privileges of setting up a sign in the heavens, they told the huntstables to go round the town and sing—

Let those drink who never drank before, And those who drank now drink the more. “Yes, Missus, there be no people that follows good advice like the Greytown people.” “ Then why don’t they make good rodes ?” says she. “ Because they have’nt time to think about them. But there be a good time cumming boys, ‘There’s gold dust in the dairy,’ as the song says, and the dairy folks intend to spend a little of it in the manufacture of rodes and such like, so that wives and daughters, and all o’ us, will be able to get to the Greytown market, without getting up to our knees in mud, and up to our middle in cold water, This is the gratis cold bath that the doctors recommend for the public benefit! It’s the cunning sprat that catches a herring. Well I do hear that the people have opened their hies lately, and intend to have a ‘ Boord ’ with a large pair of spectacles for the purpuss of seeing what they can do to improve the neighbourhood.” “ Quite time too,” says Missus. “ No doubt on it,” says I, “Is there anything else they be going to have in the Wairap Jemmy?” “Yes,” says I, “ they be going to have a new mimber of Parliament in place of the miller at Masterton, they do say that he has exhausted all his language, all the dictionary words, and that he now' can’t find any hutterance for what he wants to say.” “ Oh, that is a pitty says my wife, he was sich a nice man to talk, so soft, so milk like, and so buttery, and always did'whatever he said he wood do, so famously. Did’nt he double up one of the Commissioners in his own hut in such a way that the Commissioner has never been able to hold move than two offices at the same time ever since?” “ No, my deal,” says I, “he did’nt do any sich thing, the katastrophy was prevented by the rising of the waters in that there nasty river the Winawa at Masterton. Don’t you know wife, that— He who talks and runs aw'ay, Lives to talk another day. It is a pity undoubtedly for the Waidropto lose a valyable member of Parliament—but the calamity has yet to arrive. I will say this however, that his language w'as the most floury that I ever did hear, and if he should resign his provincial honors without my ever again hearing him, it will be a long time before we shall look upon his like again. Great men be scarce sure enough here and elsewere. But he has not resigned, thank the heavens, he knows a trick worth two on it, and so do I.” Well Mr Headhittcr, after writing what I have, I leaves you to judge wdiether I am alive or no. Missus says its doubtful, but its when she gets crabbed, and ivhen she’s been disturbed in her sleep by dreams, and such like, that she is so obstropolous. I must say she has’nt been the same yeoman s j n ce she read that in your paper about the man iiir quiring for an “ugly baby.” Her great fear is that he wall cum to her house when her Jemmy, that’s me, is away, and then she says look out fer conscquncifis. Didn’t she fly up when she read on it ? Didn’t her hair stand on end “ like quills upon the frightful porkypine ?” Did’nt she abuse all the headhitters for putting such a thing into the noosepaper, on purpuss to frighten loving and affectionate wives? I don’t know' what she did’nt say that’s a truth. I don’t think I shall ever heer

the last of it, and its very doubtful if there will be any more Chatterboxes than what are already in existence, and all owing to that nasty parry-graff. That’s whatyour paper has done. She says you ought to be ashamed of it, and so I says says X, no doubt you arc, but what won’t a man say for the sate of peace and quietness among his household gods and womenfolk. As soon as things be a little quiet at home and the hares on her hed subsided, and and as soon as I have new glasses for pay spectacles you shall hear again. From JEMMY CHATTERBOX, Postscript. —ls there anything that 1 could drop into my eers to make my fleering more sharp, for they do tell me there be a lot of things going on that I knows nothing about ? How is it that you haye not told me there was aßush Nippers Anti-hungry-Association in the neighbourhood for killing o’ cattle that belongs to anybody or nobody, and to prevent their faceting each other. Does’nt it serve the cattle right ? Why don’t they stay at home ? I must talk to you about this if you won’t talk to mg, Adew!