OUR BOYS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10662, 24 May 1895, Page 6

OUR BOYS.

TO THE EDITOE. Sie,— -As a man who has long since passed the divinely limited age of three score and ten, and one who has a largo family of boys 911 his hands, I am writing to ask what you would suggest I should do with them. It was long ago written, “ Blessed is the man who has his quiver full of them.” If the man who wrote that were living in these days—-when sheep are "so much a dozen,” wheat 2a 6d, oats Is 2d, and potatoes 17s “at country stations, sacks thrown in ” —he would have written, “ Blessed is the man who isn’t fall of quivers when he thinks of them.” To my mind, enfeebled by“theoaresof this world,” and the infirmities concomitant to old age, the outlook is dismal in the extreme. But to come to the point at issue: What is there for our boys to do ? Every trade is filled to overflowing. Dentistry, however, offers a few openings; and incongruous as it may appear, the dentist’s " chamber of horrors” is not unfrequently enlivened with ludicrous situations. For instance, the other day a tall, gaunt and hideously-ugly female, when about to have the nitrous oxide administered, mincingly requested the dentist “to promise that he would refrain from kissing her while she was under the effects of the gas.” To which the dentist wittily replied that “ he should do no such thing!” As to placing them on Cheviot—well, there they certainly would very speedily gain much useful insight as to the working of a very busy “ mill,” the manager of which has his office in the Government Buildings, Christchurch. British East Africa raised great expectations a few years ago; but -now it looks anything but promising. The worst thing, however, about tropical climates is, that although you may settle down in them resolutely determined to act according “to your lights,” the purgatorial atmosphere very soon makes you act according to your liver. And how can a man inflicted with a “liver” hope to prosper? The Eastern question portends momentous issues, and it certainly looks as If Russia and England will, in the near future, “ go for ” each other “ hammer and tongs.” Agreeably to the theory that every “bullet has its billet,” wa cannot but infer that if there ate then as many billets as there will be bullets, our boys will assuredly be above par.—-lam, &c POOR OLD NINETY-FIVE.