A FEW REMARKS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6678, 28 November 1908, Page 5

A FEW REMARKS.

(By "119.")

Despairingly tho scribe hung round the neck of his friend nml a<sked “What's a fellow to write about anyway? Tho elecliontn are all over, I’vo written about all tho things that over happened to icu —nnd I’m stumped.” Tho friend uufa.s* tened tho grip round his neck ami took the scribbler to an inquest. A constable, was eating o. sandwich and there was a bottle of whisky on tho mantelpiece. Tho bottle of whisky had been found on the corpse of a man who was retrieved from the harbour, the meat in the sandwich was from tho rib of a pig, and tho bread had been mad© with tho potatoes of commerce and the wheat of the held. The friend dared the scribe to find inspiration in the properties hero named. But take the pig inspiration for instance. What a story could bo written on plain pig, from the melodramatic porkers who went down tho hill filled with devils cast out of biblical folk to the largo *‘(Japr tain Cooks" filled with .the lead of the nig hunters and tho teeth of the hunt uogs! Figs take me to South Australia, the jungles of India, the mealie fields of South Africa and the feraridges of New Zealand.

The Australian cocky is short of meat., That is to say there is only about six pounds of mnk pork left in tho brino barrel. Ho has told the two tired men and his own family that Sunday will b© pig killing day, and lias warned them to prepare and not to do anything tool- , isli like going to church. In tho mean- ;• tim© he sends tho children out. to -et traps for rabbits and to keep a wary eye open for snakes—carpet snakes prefer, able because they are tho largest i kind’ - of Australian snako and therefore make ,; a bigger ; feed for tho pigs. The small ' “tigers," and “blacks," and “greys," and the other venomous kinds are not so iat. Rabbits make good feed too, especially > if the rabbits have been, poisoned. Figs don't mind and tho person in the town * stores who buys the delicious pink and whit© bacon doesn't ask. But como along to tho pig pen for it is tho Sunday mentioned above. Tho cocky himself is a largo man and from the’ distance he seems gigantic for ho is clothed in an old frock belonging to tho missus. Tho missus has already got tho big copper boiling under tho tree l>y tho well, and tho kiddies aro armed, willi ■ pot lids, pieces.of old hoes nnd eoyrljug ■> else that will scrap© hair from' hide. , Did you over try to catch pigs j m a l/g stye.? Seo.tho big fellow* with .Tie ring ; in his nos© and tho off hind kg white, v (Bit of Berkshire in him T'spectJ. 'II© - largo cocky makes a divo ter the leg . ana steps on tho skirt ho is : wearing 1 to save his greasy molcskins-i —. •: ■ ; course ho falls down and tho lime I re- : member him the best was when he felt into the trough and he was tho first animal to bo ecra-pod. Tho hired man is nimbler and gets the pig. A more or less deft twist and tho pig:’is on its i back. Young Faddy tho eldest son. is quick •with tho rope and while the pig i squeals in mortal dread Paddy slips the noose over his tusks and-- pulls it taut j on his top jaws. Then tho crowd drives the pig to the. old dray that: is Standing ,> outside and’pull his nose up, skyward by tho simple process of passing tho rope ; through tho backboard iron. Tho pig's neck is stretched but ho still squeals. The cocki© has been scraped by tlm time and he has drawn hie knife, Thero. is a Tittle depression in tho throa.t of a pig and the gentleman with the knife pushes the blade in a down* < ward direction into tho depression. The i ro*nd is loosened. 'The pig is happy now . - and doesn't squeal. Ho feels weak and ! wobbles and if /; you give him food ho will take it in his mouth and it will/run. , out of the place where lit© cocky has stricken him. The pig doesn't mind dying as long as ho can die eating. Fnopio don't waste much food on dying pigs and there/is tho water, getting cold anyway. This is where tho ’family cornea in. Sousd goes fcho Berkshire and ouzz go th© pot lids until in’ a few minuted ; from the dining hour of Mr pig ho m cleaner than ho has over been before. Pig is an entrancing subject ©specially when 1 he is fed on carpet snakes and poisoned rabbits. /i

One recalls a troop train that was bringing' quite a quantity of soldiers 3 out of the valley of death (or worxls to that effect) into the haven of rest-and :s: canteens. There was an Army Bervic". teupply carriage shunted on to a hoe at . (wo will say) the Wildebcostespruit sid- > iug. There wore about thirty-nine gallon kegs'of rum on the a soldier man commanded a "hoy" to annex one. The boy slipped i-ound the rear of j the truck, and being a powerful: Zulu : ( j easily pushed tho keg into a bag, and on to his great shoulder. Then ho crawled s over tho buffers and was halted toy a sentrv with a fixed bayonet at the charge. “What yer got tnero hoy P ’ ho , • roared. "Tig baas!" whined tho : boy., Tho soldier felt the round side of tho "pig” (which did not squeal) and them wore many "rashers" in various viator bottles that night. ■ ; i

Tunny thing how one pig loads to an- s other. ’You remember the time you; alld ii me worked for O’Gruel on the little selection near the big lignum swamp up the Murrumbidgce about thirty miles ' from Huston? Yes. Well the night you got-, a job with O'Gruel who was hay- ;; making at the time, ho was in a terrible \ qxtandary for a place to give you a i "doss” down. If you remember X slept. in tho bos stripper and killed a tiger j snake just before I turned in. You : were more particular being college bred. O’Gruel went the rounds of tho “outbuildings’’ including tho cartrhed, tha '•‘Stable" built of gum boughs and tho other appointments of a selection oi the early nineties. At last ho look you tu the'pigstyo where, dwelt, if you roincm- , her. the family pig. ; . Then ho: went to the kitchen door and called to his wife "Mary." Mary scrap- : cd the flour off her arms with a piece of stick and came to the door. "Pliwat." "Can we take the pig in hero t’night, ■■ because Oi want the stoyc fox- the new jnahn ?” . And you remember how the jug wont to. bed in the kitchen and you slept on the bank- of the liver and fought mosquitoes all night? My word but thoaa were the days. What?

Then that other time when, the big hour with tiie sir inch tusks was discovered- in the fern patch on liunga Kunga in. the Wairarapa and how you . being fresh to large hew Zealand pigs swore to got his tusks, and how you didn’t know ho was there until he ; grunted from behind a bush and how startled you were when you let the old Winchester fall and you tripped over that root, and how you never got a chance with the gun again -until the old ! hoar had chewed a lump out of your near leg. Sunny how you try to disguise that limp nowadays, and how particular you are about the height of -your collar.

Then one can’t forget all the history ' associated with the bit of bread in tb« policeman’s sandwich. The bit of bread i suggests all we strive for. W'e live for our stomachs and fill them so that we may live. Can't you see the illimitable : field of corn and the - horses toiling in. .: the strippers and the drivers choked with dust. And the fifteen shillings a ; week slave at the handle of tho win- : nower turning, turning, turning from , “jackass" till sundown just because bo wants to fill his stomach with bits of .. bread made from the wheat. I b ho likeiy to disrcincmber the rancid flyblown beef and the awful damper for winch he tolled and which however ho was . , glad enough to get when his throat was full of dust of the dry Australian wheat paddock and the pulverised husks of .the staff of life? Didn’t his, nose bleed with the dust and didn’t his moleskins stand up stiff with sweat when ho. pulled them on in the cold of four thirty o'clock in ; the morning' Did he, feel religious for j instance when he chased horseS in tbt

carlv grey and a two thoriHand acre paddock, and did lm sins hymns of thankfulness when, after be had jammed thf dripper teau» in Hie angle of the lenee nearest the homestead. Iho whole moh broke baek and cleared like a bush hre !o the far end of the paddock?

Doph ho remember the lime when ho (.ramped his hoots off his loot lor tin* idiiuieo of working so that ho 'could eat sandwiches likethe policeman s al iho in'(iii'Kl,? Or the time ho was a hit weai’y M tho whole dasli Hung and tooted It twenty miles into a township to break 'Jie monolony. And how lie called at the oosI; oilier hern use there was the od‘ ■hurieo of a fetter from Home. And hour fhero was a letter from IJorno and how he opened it and read it hurriedly and shoved it hack again disgusted heeauso the fatted parent had merely Bald 'fllowde—do, Vours affectionately etc, and Pad apparently forgot that a working man had a stomach. And how half way baek to the rump the disgusted one sat on the stump at old Bigwig's homo paddock gate and drew out the other Bigwig’s iotler from homo and read it again and throw down iho envelope and .sworn all Uni classical cusses known to hnshmeu and others. And how he picked the envelope up onto .more to tear tho stamp (iIV for fun or fancy and how he opened the letter again and found a draft for a mini fat enough to feed h.s rttomaeh for quite a while without having recourse to winnowing machines and the brine tub; and further how ho didn’t care -whether the temperature wan f»U in Uio shado or Id) (which it was.) long ,uh ho could get buck to Uio township to cash the draft. And how whim ho got baek the bank was closed hut tho people at tho boardinghouse respectful at tho sight of the draft. And how ho slept in u sumptuous bedroom for tho first limo in years and how he caught a, cold, also tho first in years, just because ho was away from nature for awhile. Hut these reminisconses are becoming personal and too intimate and one gets away from tho bottle of whisky, from the dead man’s pockety and iho sandwich in tho large hand of the constabulary. Still, bottles of whisky, constables, and sandwiches, have their 'uses. Thank you constable.

‘'Consider the* Ultra of the field, how they hark, for I any unto you that Solomon in u glazed iuiti and number nine boots was not; arrayed like one of these/’ A word specialist, sheltering under the umbrella of anonymity in the columns <>f ini affirmatively negative print, indulges in constructive metaphor to the following effect; For political Caomnt/nalting tin* principal materials arc the Wtod of ability, the glue of long service. the varnish of geography, and the nails of the Premier's predilection-. Clarity of expression is the wine of carpentering and tho tdmvings of chance nr O' tho meatuxo of literature. In the rearing of the forro concrete building of political opposition the hinder twine of conviction is the iron that coagulates tho dfcfioaaat particles and cements tho ■whole into one harmonious half. Short service is tho paint of arithmetic ami tho screws of supposition untie- the knots that guide tho prow of destiny to a rich fruition, fertilised by the pruning hook of time and tho hour glass of statecraft. As 'Coleridge «o truly said; "Twag right . . such birds to slay •That bring the* fog and mist."