Intelligent Vagrant.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 221, 4 December 1875, Page 13

Intelligent Vagrant.

Quis scit an adjiciant hodiernre crastina summae lempora Di Superi.— Horace. The editor of this paper informs me that Mi’. John Sheehan, M.H.R., and poor unhappy Ei’in have been subjected to contumely in consequence of a paragraph I wrote last week, in which I mentioned that a convivial youth was a native of Mr. Sheehan’s counti-y. It seems that in consequence of this some people have accused Mr. Sheehan of conviviality, and have said that I insinuated an insult to Ireland by stating a convivial gentleman was an Irishman, that is to say, a counti'yman of Mr. Sheehan’s. This matter can be put right by me in an instant. I desire solemnly to disclaim any intention to connect conviviality with Mr. Sheehan. I have heard him too often and too long in Parliament to associat anything convivial with him. All my recollections of him are dismal and dolorous in the extreme. As to the implied insult to Ireland, I disclaim any idea of having offered such. Mr. Sheehan is a New Zealander, and I wish his country joy of him !

A Masterton correspondent writes to say that if the editor of the Wairarapa Standard cannot see any meaning in an allusion by the New Zealand Times to himself and thistles, there are some of his neighbors who can. At the Agricultural and Pastoral Association’s show on Wednesday, Mr. Yallance drove into the yard three donkeys. As the foremost animal made its appearance, a bystander called out “ Make way for the Editor of the Wairarapa Standard .” I trust that my literary friend will now find himself assisted to a better comprehension of the meaning of his coutemporary.

And whilst I am at this matter, I had better polish off the editor of the Wairarapa Standard. As the worst term of contempt for me he uses “ Itinerant Showman.” Well, I have had, and I trust shall again have, claims to that title. For I have got a real novelty, and am going into the show business. I have procured in the Wairarapa, and am about to exhibit throughout the civilised world, the editor who understood Sir George Gi’ey’s letter but couldn’t see a joke.

The printers had a soiree on board the Border Chief, lying alongside the wharf, on Monday evening. That same evening “Johnny came marching home again” in the personsof Messrs. Martin and Seed, who arrived by the Otago. When they saw the crowd on the wharf they were delighted, and Mr. Martin is reported to have said to Mr. Seed “Well, aren’t we popular after all ? See how the Elites (pronounced as if naming the family of the Jewish priest) are turning out to receive us.” This gratification was somewhat damped when they heard one of the swell Elites say to a female “Here’s Johnny Martin back again, and I suppose no one would have cried his eyes out if the old nail had stayed away. We shall be late for the next quadrille.”

That is a curt, yet solemn, manner in which a Maori is disposed of by a telegram from Gisborne, which says:—“A Maori got insensibly drunk—he was buried to-day.” There is an absence of unnecessary fuss about the announcement that makes it charming in these days, when the acme of newspaper work seems to be reached by conveying the smallest possible amount of information in the greatest attainable quantity of words. Now, the Gisborne style is far better, and is like that adopted by a friend of mine in Ireland, some twenty-five years ago. He and his father had gone to a distant fair, to sell some cattle. He wrote home in a week, —“ Dear Mother—The cows fetched fine prices, and we had all the enjoyment possible. The corpse will be back on Tuesday, and don’t be mean in the matter of eating and drinking, for I would like father to have a decent wake.”

Mr. Moriarty writes to me that my remarks about Mr. Po’Shay last week were as ungenerous as they were incorrect, and I am not inclined to contradict him, aspiring as I do neither to generosity nor accuracy. Mr. Moriarty says that Mr. Po’Shay has in reality “done the thing beautiful” (the grammar is Mr. M.’s, not mine) “and hassoukl the knowing ones. He carted round a requisition to ould Gizzy to stand as Mayor, and got hundreds to sign it who would never have done so had they known that the mayoralty was to be but a stepping-stone to Parliament in the interests of a sect, and of a public pensioner; and now, those who signed, being honorable men, will not draw back, and so Gizzy will have a walkover.” Mr. Moriarty says that I ought to express admiration of Mr. Po’Shay’s tactics. So I do ; but having bad some slight experience in these things, I may say that I fancy such tactics are but temporarily successful, and generally defeat tlieir own ultimate object.

They are telling nonsensical stories about Mr. Fitzherhert. They say he has passed the last two days in ’rapt contemplation of the addresses issued by the candidates for Wellington, and that he has hunted sadly, and with a microscope, in them for one tiny bit of support of Provincialism and cannot find one. But they do say, that the funniest thing of all will be when he reads Mr. Bunny’s address, which sage persons assert is likely to prove a mutual instance of the phenomenon of turning one’s coat, a phenomenon easy of accomplishment to a man like Mr. Bunny. In this connection I may say that I have a letter from a correspondent, who is anxious to know how much Provincialism is worth to Mr. Fitzlierbert, directly and indirectly. He wants to know this because he once heard Mr. Fitzherbert express anxiety to work as a carpenter, at 10s. a day, in fashioning its coffin. Until* Thursday I was unaware that Mr. Moorhouse could be sarcastic. Mr. Dransfield and Mr. Gillon had some words at the meeting of the City Council, and Mr. Moorhouse said Mr. Gillon was only “ playful.” lam sure a good many bitter things have been said and written about Mr. Gillon, but this I esteem the bitterest. The idea of talking of him as playful. I cannot associate the word with him, unless in the same manner that I might speak of the gambollings of a megatherium, and that would be intended for sarcasm. There is a want of fixedness about the declarations of these editors in favor of or against parliamentary candidates. There shall be none about mine. I have no vote, but if I had one I should certainly give it to Mr. Moody, who six months ago received favorable mention from me. Ido not know much about his political principles, but his social ideas are admirable. He is not one of those men who are not continually forgetting that their fellowcreatures have mouths.

With due regard for that anonymity which is the safeguard of independent journalism, I make no enquiry as to the personality of the gentleman who writes with the scissors for the Timaru Herald. I am content to know from his style of work that he must be a rarely funny fellow, with a keen sense of the highest humor, for, on Monday, November 22, ho has seven paragraphs under the heading “ English Clippings,” and of these one relates to an incident on a United States railway, one to the doings of a youthful swindler in California, one to the sale of preserved meats in England, one to painful details of the Texas prison arrangements, one to an inspectorship of foundlings in Ireland, one to Thames trout fishing, and one to the discovery of certain relics of Peter the Great. There is a pleasant humor about classing the United States, Ireland, &c., under the generic term “English.”