LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 235, 11 March 1875, Page 3

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

(From the Press.) Yon don’t know how fond I am of music. No one can live long in Christchuich without acquiring a taste for harmony. The longer a person lives here the less particular he gets about the quality of it. There is a kind of music we lack, and that is a street band. We have had one or two attempts in this line, but from, I suppose, want of appreciation, the performers lost confidence in our public, and departed to slow music for other climes. The nearest approach to anything of the kind we have is the vocalist who vends hot saveloys and pies through the streets of an evening. “ Oft in the stilly night ” have I bought sue culent provender from this estimable purveyor, listening entranced to his dulcet yells. “Lives there a man with soul so dead ” (Don’t notice the poetry in italics. It’s not mine.) as to impose on this truly sausagy warbler? Alas, there does Such an one got several excellent penny pies from the warbler and eat them. This induces the belief that he must have had a grand appetite. He subsequently found that he had left his purse on the piano, and the warbler went for him to some purpose. He had an interview about assaults in the R. M. Court next day. His defence was that he could not summons a man under a shilling, and he was had so frequently for lesser sums that his life was rapidly becoming a burden to him. I’m sorry for the warbler, but am thankful for the information. 1 can do a lot with eleven pence, and it’s always best to be honest if you can. As long as you keep out of trouble, you’re honest. You’ve found that out by this time I expect. Up to the present I cannot say that I have read the reports of the City Council with that amount of interest which I have no doubt they, deserve. It’s no use my saying that I’m thrilled with the statement of the surveyor about stone channelling, nor can I get much ecstatic over the wages account. Hitherto our civic dignitaries have carried on business in a staid business manner; but now suddenly some of them have been seized with a lively fit. They have been engaged in persiflage of "such ;a gay kind that his Worship states he has made arrangements for a policeman to be in attendance if necessary. This is very nice. We shall now be able proudly to boast of being the sole town, not only possessing but requiring a sergeant or rather aconstable-at-arms. One can imagine the dignity with which, let us say Mr Bares, would arrest a recalcitrant councillor, and “ run him in” to whatever limbo may be assigned to offenders of this kind. The recent debate of the Council reminds me of a Young Men’s Improvement Association to which I once had the honour to belong. We took up the subject of Henry the Bth. I said in point of Cardinal Virtues he was far ahead of any other monarch England ever possessed, People have come round to my view now. They hadn’t then though. My opponents were numerous and aggravating in their remarks. Some gentle sparring ensued, in which I merely called them chuckleheaded chumps of wood. After a bit we adjourned for refreshment—to the back yard—when three Associated Improvers got improving me with round billets of wood, I never got such a flush of varied situations in my life. Next day I couldn’t write the apology to the.chairman on account of black eyes. I got a friend to do it for me. The day after the Improvers sacked me. I’ve always enjoyed personalities since, but I keep clear of them myself. I am pleased to observe that female scholarships have been instituted by the Board. I cannot quite understand boys having to give away a year to their fair competitors. I expect girls are as smart as boys. Such is my experience. I wish in my diffident style to suggest the following samples of questions as likely to suit a province where advertisements such as the following frequently appear :—“ Wanted a Cook or Housemaid. Wages no object.” 1. Cook a Spud. 2. What is Soap 7 Do you you use it; if so, how often ? 3. Darn the enclosed sock with cotton or worsted, not on paper, i, State briefly bow you would slang a

butcher boy whobroughtyouunreliable joints? 5. What are the effects of slinging soap-suds in front of the back door. 6. Describe a dinner for six and say how you would cook it. 7. Supposing your missus throws cups and perhaps saucers at your master’s head in your presence, how would you act ? 8. Give nine good excuses for being an hour late on your night out, 9. How are your cousins ? How many of them are there, and how do you like them ? In connection with this question you may state how much beer a cat is likely to get through say in a fortnight. 10. Define Frisette, panier, handkerchief, bassinette, dress-improver, and chatelaine. 11. Make a time table for a cook or housemaid. 12, Write a short essay on perambulators. There has been no lack of amusement lately in Christchurch, I have been to the theatre, which is good. I have seen the wonderful Girards, and wished my fond parents had brought me up as a contortionist, but the most glittering entertainment I have come across for many long years was the Ram Fair. To describe this show properly would require more space than I can afford, in fact my emotions alone would expand to a column and a half. Without wishing to detract from the merit of this really lively entertainment, I must say it has robbed me of a long cherished illusion. When you come to be my age you will find illusions hard to part with. Hitherto I have clung pertinaciously to two. I have trusted that the man who in strict confidence showed me his pocket-book, with the following written words, “ Lend us a bob. Pay you on Monday,” would, considering the favorable answer he received, pay me on some Monday or other. I cling to this illusion still. My other illusion was long wools, I thought long wools were long wools. When I saw a man owning pens of stupid unhappy-looking brutes of the Leicester, Lincoln, or Rummy species, I considered that man an agricultural and pastoral millionaire. I don’t now. Every one has got long wools of some sort, and every one wants to sell. Long wools are as plentiful as testimonials—very nearly. Some years ago a large mob of sheep were sold at the Carlton yards for Is fid each, and a large mob of geese were sold the same day for 3s fid each. Let us not revert to these things; rather let us boil down hundreds of excellent rams similar to some of those 1 saw last Friday, and we may yet find a buyer or two somewhere without punishing auctioneers too much. I cannot leave this topic without expressing my anxiety about one nice old man I observed at the Fair, Every pen did this gay old galoot scan with a critical air. Frantic dives he made into fleeces and carefully consulted his catalogue. Yet as the long day passed slowly along he never made a buy. Once when some sheep went for 2s fid each, I saw a bid shimmering so to speak o’er his tongue, but he drew back and let some one else in. I hope he is suited, because well, because if he be not shortly, breeders will hear about him and he will have to employ a secretary to answer his letters. You take my advice now if you want to make money. Take up pigs and cling to them. Don’t forget. Go straight for pigs. In reference to the foregoing, a neighbor of ours kept a nanny goat. She was scarcely much to look at, and she never was milked so far as I know ; but instinct was her dash. In regard of instinct, I never met her equal. She cleanedjour garden out in a fortnight, and then took to eating one’s boots. Nothing ever came amiss to that goat. I’ve seen her start with tracts and finish up with towels. We wearied of this animal. Her idiosyncrasies got to pall on us. Rebukes, even when accompanied by stones and sticks, produced no effect on her. Her disposition was that friendly that nothing could shake her confidence in us or our shrubs. We got a scientific man up one day who had been brought up on an electrical platform. He got his apparatus rigged on to a nice-looking clean sheet hanging on the line, and when that specious-looking goat came out, and had got fairly settled down to chewing it up in her fraudful style, we wired her to leave off. I never saw a goat take up with science so sudden. She revelled about the garden for a space, and then started off to call on a friend in the direction of Lake Ellesmere. Fortunately, she was captured by some boys and brought back. Her owner wants to sell her now. He says she seems to have lost all interest in life. I expect anyone could buy that goat now cheap, I expect you don’t remember old Confucius. He lived a few thousand years ago. He founded a style of philosophy, and owing to the fact of philosophy being scarce at the time, he was made much of —say 1000 years after his death. Mankind are lightning on revering good people after death, and pitching stones at them when they’re alive. In consequence of not being acquainted with the Chinese language, I’m not so well up in Confucius as I could wish. I I regret this the more because a Celestial who is well posted in the doctrines is going round the world converting people. He has started in Boston and thinks Christians so far as he has got very ordinary. I hope he won’t come here, because there are lots of Christians I know in this metropolis who could improve themselves so much morally by becoming proselytes to the faith, that Ching Foo, or whatever is the Chinese missionary’s name, might do a business here which would shock some of us.