THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Press, Volume XX, Issue 2921, 11 September 1872, Page 3

THE LOAFER IN THE STREET.

New Zealand is composed of three islands* Stewart's island produces oysters. The North Island produces political crises, and natives who flare up. The Middle Island is inhabited by a fine race of people, who eat the oysters, contribute freely towards the crises and expenses of the aboriginal flares up. Tbe whole lot is called the Britain of the Southern Seas. It is the finest country on the face of the earth at present. As a field of immigration it is unequalled. This statement is not original. I have heard it frequently. I have heard it so frequently that I believe it. Most of the residents in these parts believe it also. They believe it so much that anyone purchasing the island at his own valuation and selling at ours,could retire on a competency and found a hospital here for inebriates into the bargain. I don't wish to wander from my subject, but such an institution would be a sweet boon to the country. Such is my opinion at least. As to the politics of this country—but I've read so much politics lately that my mind is three parts tottering. So much so, that ata meetingtheothernight, when I heard a fellow lecturing on some i scientific subject, I was about to rise to a I point of order. Let us return, or rather let us find a subject to return to. When 1 state that I have found a subject, and that is Immigration, coupled with Servant Girls, you will allow we can get along. It is a curious fact that we have no end of fellows on good wages scooting round the happy homes of England, Scotland, and Ireland, inducing parties to change them and come out to what Sir Charles Dilke calls the Britain of the South, and writes upon, let us say, imaginatively. Bless him ! These agents don't woo the agricultural mind in proper style. Immigration don't flow in to that extent which a person might expect. It don't, really. We occasionally get a cargo of human beings, who arrive, after an excellent passage of 160 days, are trotted up to the Barracks, duly scrambled for, and become what politicians call absorbed. There is something very like the slavetrading in it. If the immigrants were only put up to auction, it would rather add to the character of the business. I make a present of the suggestion to Mr March, with much pleasure. As I before observed, I don't wish to wander from the subject in hand, nor do I wish to be personal; but the female specimen of the Teutonic race recently imported don't seem to wear bonnets : their head-piece is a pockethandkerchief, which, however picturesque, must be inconvenient when they have a cold in the head. They will probably take to Dolly Vardens shortly, and after a sort of Darwinian process in the matter of costume, arrive at caps, and in due process of time, culminate in bonnets. "I hope so, for really it is not fair on the drapers to bring out people who don't wear bonnets. It is rough on the drapers. I think our Teutonic friends will act thusly; for a woman without a bonnet is like—a public-house without a bar. Perhaps this simile is low, but its vigorous. Don't you agree with mc ? Besides in thus discarding a part of their national costume they have a precedent. I know men from the bonny hills of Scotland. How beautiful they are who never saw a pair of t * * * * s until they joined the ship to come out here, and who now are completely clad. Let us pursue our subject—our subject is Immigration in connection with Servant Gals. There is a part of this subject I should like to pursue to the ends of the earth—further if possible. No, I don't allude to the Servant Gals. Far from it. I allude to that not unfrequent item iv a vessel bound for the colony (" with a wet sheet and flowing sail my boys, and a wind that follows fast." a youthful rip: a youth I mean who has caused his affectionate mother to weep buckets full of tears over his cuttings up and capers, and caused his aged father to tear mor than one hair out of a pate which' could ill spare them when writing a cheque to pay for these capers; a youth who, on the principle of left-off clothes, being admirably adapted for the colony, and as a last resource, has been shipped out here. He cannot dig, but to beg he is not ashamed, and generally eventuates into a billiardmarker of the flasbest class, or a loafer of the 120 th order. I havn't many principles myself, and I'm always ready to sacrifice them for a consideration at the shortest notice, but the young gentleman I speak of has none. Look here, there ought to be a law passed to 6end them back again, as we do the Swan River men, a far superior class of men take them as a lot, or we might charter a vessel and send them as Polynesian natives to Queensland. We might make a pound or two out of it, and their parents wouldn't mind a bit. A sporting parent I once knew was troubled with a gentle prodigal of this kind. He sent him to Sierra Leone, and bet heavily that he would come back in a year. He won his money. With this hint to the British father I will continue my essay on Immigration conpled with Servant Gals. It may be recollected that was the subject we started on. A man who goes in for essay-writing should never be too discursive, he should stick to the point. I always do. Though from a too absorbing interest in the present political crisis " my mind is tottering to its very base," you will observe I have dove so on the present occasion, Jt is how-

ever for a person—such as yours very truly for instance, who seeks to convey tons of information to the public mind—never to exhaust his subject at a siugle effort. I feel that I have not quite exhausted immigration, and therefore I proceed the more boldly to take up the latter portion of my essay. Our subject being Immigration, coupled with Servant Gals, it will become apparent to any ordinary mind—say yours for instance—that lam about to take up with Servant Gals. The subject is a weighty one ; I may say in sporting parlance, a welterweighty one. We will take her up as Mr T. Hood says, tenderly and with care, young and so fair you know. I want to show you that the Servant Gal of this country is a down-trodden slave, ground so to speak under the iron heel, or rather the high-heeled boot of her despotic mistress. It is an appalling fact that servant gals don't keep their places long in this country. I want to show you why. I'm not a servant gal myself, but it is a subject I have made myself a master of. O'Pannikin, a descendant of the O'Pannikins who commenced bushranging in Ireland, in the reign Henry IL, and did well on it, and whose father came to grief through the increase of Fenianisra and eight consecutive bad books on the Punchestown Steeplechase, is living in my house. I mean in the same house with mc. He is keeping company with a general servant of the general servant stamp, and I am his confidant, consequently hers. Such are my credentials. I shall now, once more reminding you that our subject is Servant Gals, proceed to lay before you a system of tyranny which if I were not going to describe it I should say was indescribable. The general run of servants who come here are attracted from a happy home in England, where they receive from £5 to £15 a-year according to circumstances, where followers are probably not allowed, where they are expected to be answerable either for the meals and rooms of a plurality of lodgers, or the meals and personal safety of half-a-dozen brats (this was the word used by the future Mrs O'Pannikin it is not mine). They habitually wear ENORMOUS BOOTS down at the heels. Their hands are perpetually —"grimy" is a mild word, and to sum it up they lead the life of a galley slave, with the lowest wages given to human being. They exist you know. They enjoy—but this is not Low Life Below Stairs ; this is an essay on Servant Gals. I hope I have shown you the really happy condition of the S. G. in happy England. I could have done so far better. I could have filled your paper on the subject alone of the social status of the S. G. in England. I could have drawn tears from lots of your readers, and you know how people enjoy a good weep ; but blind to the merits of the present writer, you prefer brevity. Let it pass, and let us pursue our subject. I may be allowed to remind you, perhaps, that the subject is still Servant Gals. When the S. G. comes out here, she finds herself not only in great request, but she also finds her lines cast in very pleasant places. Of all the grievances complained of in the recent meeting of female domestics at Glasgow, none exist here. Sunday cooking is not much here. The Sunday outing and followers to any reasonable amount are not objected to. The wages are certainly good in most cases, more than double what the recipient has been accustomed to at home. For all this information I am indebted to the future Mrs O'Pannikin, but she informs mc that girls here like dress. None of your cheap and nasty fal de lals' thank you. They get good wages, and can afford to array themselves regardless of expense. They can afford not only to copy their missusses and beat them in some casesThe missusses don't like it, from which I gather the information that the case of Tilburina's confidante don't always hold goodTilburina may go mad in white satin, and imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, the confidante may go nibd also. But she musn't become insane in white satin. Tilburnia may wear a chignon which looms in the distance like a wool dray, but the confidante musn't. In short the servant girl musn't dress like her missus, nor yet like her young mississes. I had always thought this colony a perfect garden of Bendermeer for servant gals, but O'Pannikin's fiance pronounces it a howling wilderness. It is not my province to enter into the merits of the case, for not being a female (of low stature with a figure like a flour bag tied in the middle, and features which speak volumes in favor of the human race having been monkeys at no very remote period) with an intense desire to robe myself similar to my missus, I can't be expected to take the lively interest in the matter which O'Pannikin's Dulcinea doesThe servant gals are going to meet soon and talk over this and other matters, and to talk more on the subject would only spoil sport for them. In the meantime if I have succeeded in conveying to your mind and those of your readers, that this is an incomplete essay on Immigration in connection with Servant Gals, and that Servant Gals are a downtrodden class, I shall have done well. I cannot refrain from saying, however, that I don't think I have succeeded. I'm not used to essays. When I essay again I shall give you my views upon governesses. It is a subject I know nothing whatever about, but I notice so many men write in the papers upon matters of which they are ignorant that I feel it would be only right of mc to do likewise. You will perhaps bear in mind, however, that the above is an unfinished essay. i