"SNYDER" AGAIN MEETS ROBERT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XI, Issue 3992, 28 August 1874, Page 3

"SNYDER" AGAIN MEETS ROBERT.

[FROM THE AUCKLAND " WEEKLY 11KHALD "] Ttir.EE months had passed by since I had enjoyed the pleasure of some talk with my intelligent friend Robert, the policeman. I had missed him from his usual beat as I wended my home at midnight, or in the young hours of the morning; and I had it in my mind that the whereabout of my Robert ought to be enquired into, for that man had taught me more of the true philosophy of life than I ever gleaned from the works of Plato, Artcmus Ward, Aristotle, Bret Harte, or Josh Billings, the latter of whom 1 take to be superior in the philosophy line of business to all the ancients, if what they knew was compiled and done up into one edition. In meditation fancy free 1 was making in the direction of my home quarters wondering in my mind when the session would come to an end—wondering what Vogel's next more would be on the political chess-board—wondering if he had liit upon a new tax which would be the means of building up a small colony of a quarter of a million of very ordinary men and women into a huge empire, to be kuown among the nations of the world. 1 uever, if I can avoid it, make use of slang words, but iu turning things over in my mind i was wondering of what materials our Premier's next dodge would bo composed of; and next I wondered what my dear cantankerous, attentive, anxious, heart-rending old housekeeper had laid out for my supper, and wondered who taught her the art of aggravating and blowing up a man—a man, as I may say, who is altogether dependent upon woman for his meals and a change of linen, in return for which she appears to consider the largest amount of remuneration by far too little for the responsibility incurred. I was wondering how I regularly consumed two pounds and a half ot tea a week when at one time less than twosevenths of that amount left a balance in the caddy on Monday mornings, and I continued wondering until I was greeted with the once familiar voice of my friend Kobert, who, placing his right hand gently on my left shoulder—a habit acquired by the preliminary process towards arresting a man— he said,

" Mr. Snyder, it is an age since we have met. Has the world dealt tenderly and gently by you since we last greeted, conversed, and parted 'i' : " Kobert," 1 said, "we must take the world as we take the weather—just as it comes. To-day a bit of clear sky and bright sunshine ; the next clouded and stormy ; ft one time warm and genial ; at another damp and depressing. The world, Robert, has used me as the weather —on the whole it has given me fair play. May I hope that you can say the same of yourself? O, my, Robert, has it been all serene with you '! 1 have read that by Act of Council another shilling has, by a considerate Government, been added to your daily pay." "And had you enquired a little further, Mr. Snyder, you would have found that my family quiver has received an accession to my hearth and home as much iu the likeness of a new-boni bapy as it is possible for it to be. "When the wise king said ' happy is the man who has his quiver full of them,' he didn't take into account the price of boys' boots in connection with a constable's pay in a scoria country."

" .Robert," 1 said, "you appear to me hipped and out of spirits. Have the fates been unpropitious of late, or clous your supper lie as an undigested weight upon you V" " No, Mr. Snyder, 1 was a little put out before 1 c.iino on my beat, but I relieved my feelings half an hour ago by running a man into the guard-house and laying a charge against him which he won't get clear of in the morning under twenty shillings. You havn't any idea what a woman has to do •with yetting a man locked up. You think it's a policeman that runs a man in or lets him go when all the time its his bosom's joy, or a woman at least, that's at the bottom of it all. Before I left home to-night my wife and me had a few words upon a little domestic matter which it's no use troubling you about, Mr. Snyder, and so when 1 goes out she says to me she wouldn't care if i never came back again. Xot but what she would care, Mr. Snyder, because she would care a very precious deal. Taking us one day with another, we have had a very jolly time of it ever since wo began tilling the domestic quiver ; but the old woman (locs rile me sometimes, and she riled me to-night, and so I did as a great many of us do in this world —when 1 couldn't vent my anger in one place 1 did it in another. 1 see a man three-parts slewed, and says I, ' My boy, 1 shall run you in'; and I've run him in, and 1 felt better for a time. It's human nature, I suppose, to itasc one's feelings by making oneself do something harsh to someone else when the someone else can't help himself. A man blows up his wife, and if she's a lady she goes right oil' and blows up the servant; or a lady blows up her husband when he goes and blows up his storeman or his clerk. This sort of thing eases the mind and rounds off the edges of one's auger. It's just as I say—it's human nature. It's not human nature of the best quality, but still it is human nature, Mr. Snyder, and we appear to be so imperfectly constituted that we can't help it. Many's the woman who gets a man locked up all night in a cold damp cell, and mauy's the woman gets a man let go. You see, we will say me and. my wife has had quite a comfortable evening together. The children have been making us laugh, and we have got quite light-hearted. We have had a nice bit of supper together, and when my wife helps me on with my coat and gives it a brush, and maybe allows her lips to take liberties with me,' she says, 'Robert, my dear, don't be hard on anyone to-night. Let him go if you can let him go. Boar in mind, my dear boy, that a poor, miserable, drunken man or woman ain't got the comforts of a little home as we have got, and they ain't got such, a little Bob to match a little Mary Jane as we have got. So Robert, my boy, do it softly—don't you be a going and running 'em in to-night if you can help it —don't, Robert.' AVell, Mr. Suyder, that woman softens my heart with her words just as she softens the water in her washtub by dropping a bit of soda in it. When I see a man staggering along the street quite tipsy and unable to take care of himself I goes up to him and finds out who he is, and what lie is, and all about him, and if I can't persuade him to go home, why I take him by the collar and elbow and make him move on till he cornea to his own door, and when his poor wife lets him in she may cry and take on a good deal, hut I see the 'God bless you, Mr. Policeman,' somewhere about her lips, and I go away and feel happy to think that the husband of a decent woman has been saved at least this time from disgrace. And when I tell my old woman about it she says,

' Robert, my dear, you ain't much short of being a regular brick.' That woman understands everything which is good for her to know. She can wash and iron and cook and keep the blessed babbies clean and crisp, and make a half-crown go as far as some womer..could make three-and-six, and then she'll luvve some loose change out of it. But my old woman doesn't understand human nature or the effect of woman's influence upon a man's heart. She didn't know that it was her that saved that poor wretch from being locked up for the night. There's one of our force—why we know as well as can be when there's been anything up between him and his girl. He ain't married, you know, but only a courting of her. Well, when Smith comes running his man into the guard-house and goes out again all in a hurry to look for another man to run in, and when he goes running 'eui in all through the evening, we know quite well that Smith and his girl have been having a a row. And we know that when he is not running men in like wild fire, and preferring all sorts of charges against them, and turning their pockets inside out, aud rapping them over their elbows and knuckles with the handcuffs, and dragging them oil' to a otll, and pitching them against the wall, we know that Smith and his girl have been making fair weather of it, aud that she has promised him she won't go a gallivanting with anyone else ; and we k:>.ow she won't until he begins running men in agaux when we know she has."

" Robert," I said, "I should never have thought it—that is what you have b'.-en telling me about. And may 1 ask if it be possible that what actuates the motives of a constable influences the higher dignitaries of the law ? Do you think, Robert, that a man ever gets three mouths' hard labour when he would have beeu discharged or only got a week at the most if the committing justice and his wife had not had a row at the breakfast table the same morning ?" " Do I think it, Mr. Snyder ''.-— elo I think it, do you ask ? Mr. Snyder, onu of a constable's instructions is to offer no opinion, not to talk on your beat, and be always at your post ready to perform your duty. You'll excuse me, Mr. Snyder, but I must request that you Mill not ask me my opinion is as to what a magistrate or a justice may do in consequence of a domestic row at the breakfast table. Now, Mr. Snyder, I should like your opinion—because you may gi'-e one—upon the present political situation—upon the state of things generally, you know. Do you think that knocking four provinces into one or one province into forty, or passing resolutions and amendments in the House of Varliament and all that sort of thing you know, as has being going on of late, will cause the colony to weep in sackcloth and ashes ? or what will be the sum-total when you have subtracted and divided everything 1"

"Robert," I said, "it is now near two o'clock o' the morning, and 1 am α-thirst. The Licensing Act forbids hotels being open after 12 o'clock at night. The police, I know, are very vigilant and very sev;re. Can you direct me, Robert, whore I c.-.n procure such a thing as half a, pint of beer ?" And Robert directed me, and I had ay half-pint of beer and Robert had a glass of p-l-e b-n-dy, and we agreed to defer discussing the political situation until we next did met again.