The Intelligent Vagrant.

Bruce Herald, Volume VII, Issue 649, 13 November 1874, Page 5

The Intelligent Vagrant.

" Quit sett cm adjiciant hodiernce crastina summce Tempora di Superi." — Horace.

Should there appear to be a certain incoherency about my language to-day, I trust it will be excused when I plead, in explanation, that it arises from my eye. Indeed, when I state the circumstances under which it arises from my eye, I feel sure that i shall be excused. We are enjoying in Milton the genial climate of an Otago spring. I offer no objection to the geniality, and 1 am not about to write a word against the climate, well knowing that the people of Otago are too patriotic to tolerate anything ot the kind. I merely desire to say that I do not care for geniality, when the wind blows so strongly that you do not require to shave— it does it for you — and that I prefer a climate that is not all dust. This, however, by the way. I went out yesterday because I had to do so, or remain without potatoes for dinner. I had been told with asperity, previous to my departure, that if I held my head down, and kept my eyes shut, the dust would not annoy me. Ot course, therefore, I held my head down and kept my eyes shut, and I am bound to bear witaess that, so long as I rid, the dust did not annoy me. But something else did. I was progressing with infiuite satisfaction to myself, when I felt the top of my hat sink into something soft, and I felt the top of my nose met by something excessively hard, and curses rang in my ears. I had walked into my friend Boulder's stomach, and my friend Boulder, in ignorance of who I was, had walked into my nose with his fist. Profiting by experience, I endeavored to go along further with my eyes open. Suddenly there came a feeling as if an expert coach driver had flicked the lash of his whip in my right eye, and I shut it hastily, knowing that I had a bit of dust in it. At this moment 1 remembered the advice which I ha 1 so often read in what are called the " Household," or " Domestic," or " Hints for Home," or "Advice to Mothers" columns of the Bruce Herald and other papers. I remembered that advice, and no wonder, for it generally appears about six times a year in each paper. According to that advice, I immediately began to put the upper lid of my eye over the lower lid, at the same time rubbing towards my nose. I had too much faith in simple science to stop doing these things because a lot of little boys got whooping around me, and pointing me out to passers-by under opprobrious nicknames. Having obeyed the "printed directions," as bottle labels say, I went to a hotel close by and asked for a looking-glass, in order that I might remove the bit of dust, which the newspaper had assured me would now be found in the inside corner of my eye, and would be easily removable by means of the corner of a pocket-handkerchief. I got a glass, and, opening my eye, which I had, until now, kept carefully closed, _ could ouly see something like a gash in a piece of raw beef, filled up with water. This would not do. so I asked the polite gentleman behind the bar to help me get the bit of dust out of my eye. He civilly said that he would get it out in the twiukliug of a bed-post, but that I must follow his directious. As by this time the eye felt as if a flash of forked lightning had taken permanent possession ot it, and° was playing about in it, I cheerfully agreed to do what the gentleman behind the bar would tell me. Under his instructions I swallowed a glass of brandy, neat, and blew my nose hard for some minutes. Whilst I was doing this he was engaged rolling up a strip of paper into a " spill. 1 ' So soon as I had, in his judgment, blown my nose sufficiently, he came up to me, and, jamming my head against the wall, held my eye-lids open with the finger aud the thumb of one hand whilst he used the other hand to "job" about in my eye with the spill. He occupied about a quarter of au hour in this work, as it seemed to me, and then kindly showed me on the top of the spill a piece of road metal Aveighing half an ouuee or thereabouts, which he assured me had just come out of my eye. It was painful after this positive evidence to fiud, however, that there was still a bit. of dust remaining in my eye, and so I told him. At this moment, the energetic and benevolent landlady of the hotel entered, and, having found out what was the matter, drew a short but trenchaut zoological parallel between the barman and a jackass, and said there was but one way of getting a thing out of a person's eye, and that way was by some obliging person taking the thing out on the end of his or her tongue. The landlady having said this, hesitated, and I said that considering the excessive trouble gentleman, [ whom I kiiew, was at to talk scandal on the smallest foundation, I would not let the breath of evil sully her fair fame, by permitting her to assist me in getting a bit of dust out of my eye on the tip of her tongue. I therefore entreated the help of an obliging stranger who was taking whiskey hot at the bar, but just as he was. about to help me, a messenger came from the Bkucb Hkrai.t* Qftjce, to say that if I did not' send in my "Vagrant copy" right oft, it could not be got into tho present issue. As those who read this will therefore perceive I am at prcseut writing under considerable difficulty, and am indeed in a hurry to get done in order that I may go back, and let the stranger take the bit of dust out of my eye with the tip of his tongue.

As anyone may see by reading the ; ' motto" undo? \yhicb, this \a vy.ritten, i am, an advocate i'oi-' letting 'the morrow look after itself. But that does not make me au advocate for trying to get the morrow to look after the present da)- as well. Therefore I heavily condemn thy conduct of a haoa ; cqtupaaion who drew Goldsboraugh in a big sweep ou the Melbourne Cup, and refused to sell him i'or a five price ; and. started spending mouey and enjoying himself, because to-morrow the news would come that G oldsboro.ugh had ft-qn. and ajl the niquey wqu|d co,me I> t ack to my bqpii caJiipaniftn. ' And to. say nuw that Haricot has made hasli of his hopes would be to describe his condition feebly.

Tf there were a particle of evidence wanted to prove Mr. J. L. Gillies disinterested sentiments regardiug the coal railway, that particle is supplied by his offer to sell Messrs Brogden his own. and "his brother's shares in the Bruce Coal Company, at what they cost, should: the railway be undertaken, because I ' do not think those '^ayes ar? Ifyejy to fetch mytsb

unless the railway be undertaken. . Indeed ] should say that there will be a dead loss oi them otherwise. Therefore, to show thaMr Gillies is not the only disinterested mai in Milton, I may state that I am prepared t( sell Messrs Brogden a big interest in thi Company on the same terms. I hope, if necessary, we could find a good Samaritan between here and Balclutha quit* as easily as one was found between Jerusalem and Jericho. And yet something that happened the other day would seem to argiu agaiust the probability of this. An accident happened by which it was thought a man wa:fataily injured. One, who was present at thi accident, ran to a neighbour for the loan of s horse and cart, to convey the injured man tc his home, and the neighbor, as I am told, refused. If this be true, the neighbor deserves to fall among thieves, who will strip him of his clothing, wound him, and leave him half dead on a footpath frequented only by Pharisees and Levites. An estimable body of men, in the town of Paradise Regained, the Feejee Fusiliers, not long since, gave a ball, and got into the consequent botheration about hivitatious. For instance, since they learned by experience that it was better to have the money for the tickets in advance, they made a wholesome rule that any gentleman desirous of obtaining au invitation for a friend, should forward hit name and money before a certaiu day. Consequently there has been trouble. William Wilkins, Esq., promised Bob Buttock an iuvite, and neglected to comply with the rule. Bob is now looking for hiiii, and promises, in the language of America, ■•tb !si "pu't"-ia' head on him," because persons, who, like the Marqui; of Salisbury, are masters of gibes and flouts, and jeers, are continually insinuating to 80l that the Feejee Fusiliers did not think hit company good enough for them. But worst than this was the case of a Fusilier who invited bis male cousin, from Dunedin, to bt present at the festivities of his corps, and who also forgot some portion of the necessarj formalities. The cousin anointed has hair with oil, and put on a new garment, and cams, up and walked about Paradise Regained all day, to the mental confusion of the inhabitant who bet quantities of drinks as to his identity ; some maintaining that he was the Marquis oi Xonuauby travelling incog., some insisting that he was Arabella Goddard, in male attire, and more assertiug that he was the " Reai Mackay " recently arrived from the home o. his ancestors. Aud after all, this cousin had to go back without having gone to the ball. Wiio after this will argue against the abolition of Provincialism !

The air is so thick with racing news that 1 am tempted to get into sporting writing myself. As I cannot write anything about tlu great betting markets, I may do something about the little ones. There has been v small betting frenzy amongst a small party 0; gentlemen (new to the thing) in Milton. Out of them had drawn Tamburini in a sweepstaket for the Canterbury Cup. The value of tlu sweep was 255. He went halves with tht holder of another horse, and, in order to hedge judiciously, bet against Taniburini to the tune of 15s. Well, as we all know, Tamburini won, so his fortunate owner in the sweep staudsthus: He gives half his winnings, 12s 6d, to the gentleman who went partners with him. That leaves him 12s 6d to meet his loss of los, incurred by betting against Tamburini, and he finds himself, with all his luck, out of pocket '2s 6d. He says he took his system from the bookmaker described by Lord Lytton, who always went by Algebraic rules, and always won. He thinks either he or Lord Lyttou must be wrong, but thinks Lord Lyttou most likely. Anyway, to use his own words, he has had ''euough of the turf."

I have received a very nattering letter from Queeustown which, if it wore less flattering, 1 would insert here. Instead of doing that, however, I will answer oue question which the writer has put to me. He wants to know (and in his question uses a species of conjuration more emphatic than poUte) how 1 manage to pick up all that happens. Well, he knows the old proverb, " Au reguard eudornii ricu en cheut en la gueule." Aud yet I do not know that this is so appropriate after all. Perhaps it would be better to answer " auroyaume des aveugles les borgues sout rois." In other words, it is not 1 who am so sharp, it is others who will uot look about them.

And I have yet another letter, this time from Waihola Gorge. The writer is struck with the beauty aad simplicity of a little story 1 told last week about hares aud lopeared rabbits. But above all things he admires my friend who is fond of eating hares. He suys that be will be happy to receive that friend as a visitor, and to provide him with a breechloader and cartridges, and let him loose in the localitj' every day, " If," says my correspondent, "the Acclimatisation Society fellows had farms around here, they would not regard the introduction of hares as an unmixed blessing. If they only saw the hares swarming down from the hills of an evening, and going in at the green crops and barking the young trees, they would be like the man in Shakspere whose great revenge had stomach for them all." I may explain that where I have put in a simple black line #iy correspondent inserted a very s^r^ng word'; a very strong word indeed. ' Permit me to. make an explanation. It will be seen by .something that [ have written, that I' thiuk no, faie cauld sell Bruce Coal Company's shares just now at what they cost him. r l'he fact that Messrs Gillies and Street yesterday quoted the shares on which 2s had been paid, at 2s 6d, as the last price at which, a transaction had taken place, may Sv>em contradictory to my suppositions. ' But t,hen, again, you see the** is 1 an other fact, t;hat Mr Capstick ottered shares at auction yesterday, i;ud cmUd not ' get a single bid. The logic of fact is in my favor.