THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 87, 18 May 1877, Page 3

THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

We extract the following from the Loafers contributions to the Press : —

The Editor of the Akaroa Mail apologises to his readers in a recent issue for filling it with a verbatim account of a cause celehre. From the report in question, I should say no apology was necessary. It is well worth perusal, and without commenting in any way upon the merits of the case, which the A. M. reminds us is still sub judice, I may give your readers a few facts I have learned from the statments of the witnesses. In answer to a question, whether it takes three yards of cloth to go round a ladys' waist? The witness replied that some ladies waists are arger than others. We learn that it is not usual on the part of tradesmen to apprise fond parents with the amount owing by their fair daughters, and that it is not custamery for tradesmen to follow ladies to see where they take their purchases. To the counsel for the plaintiff we are indebted for the original statement that it is a wise child that knows its own father ; while his learned opponent states that he is always in the habit of looking into chairrs before he sits down. The point of this remark probably resembles those of the immortal Bunsby, for its bearing on the case is not apparent. The articles supplied to the defendant's daughter are amusing in their variety, ranging from jewelery to anchovy paste. You will no doubt scarcely need reminding of the popularity of presentations in this province, and in the matter of giving souvenirs the young lady seems to have been truly orthodox. It does however, seem rough on her supposed fiancee that while she admits having given a casual acquaintance some honey and black currant jelly, the only gage d' amour she presented her " futur" was a lock of her hair ; a presentation Dean Swift even had not apparently a great application of, but which Mr. Wemmick in " Our Mutual Friend" might have perhaps accepted in bulk, as being in these days essentially " portable property."

In the same number of the paper from which I have gleaned the above little facts, I learn that the business people of Akaroa have resolved to close their respective establishments every evening at seven, Saturday excepted. (The italics are mine.) What a paradise must Akaroa be for employees. We are not informed at what hour they are released from their labors previous to this fiat, but it is something to get off at seven, even if they have to come up to their employers' idea of a fair thing, by working up to ten on Saturday night. We work up to six I fancy in town. I mention the fact with some diffidence, for on the subject of work I am not an authority. The poetical monarch who stated that man goeth forth unto his labour until the evening would however scarcely realise the truth of his observation, if he were to visit us. Our clerks go forth to labor until the evening, yea even often unto the small hours of the morning after ; and for the extra time wherein they thus work their employers verily forget to port any additional guerdon. Had the author of Ecclesiastics lived in these days what a paragraph he would have made on this subject when writing on " the evils under the sun."