THE STATE OF THE TIMES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 161, 22 May 1862, Page 5

THE STATE OF THE TIMES.

To the Editor of the Daily Times. Sir, —Tilings are looking very bad—very bud indeed, in Dunetlin. Everybody says so; and wli.it everybody says, you know Mr. Editor, must be true. But I rely more upon what my friends Smithson and Jumper toll me, than if it "came from a hundred other mouths. Smithson, you niust know, keeps the Alhambra Emporium ; and, if ever there was a man who might be fairly characterised as '• knowing a tiling or two," o:' of being: " up to snuff, and a pinch or two over," Smithson 's that man. I called at his establishment yesterday upon a little matter of busiuess. It will be no breach of our mutual confidence, if I say that Smithson owed me :i small amount—a mere trifle : five, four, two, as nci.r as I can recollect, for it has been standing a long lime. Smithson was in the back parlor, and being on old and familiar terms with him, I lifted the counter-flap and passed through. Sniitiison, I remarked, looked very down. He said things were really - very bad; he had never known tradu so dull before ; and we mutually mourned the sad aspect of affairs over a bottle of very fine Amontillado sherry and preserved lobster, which Smithson caused to bo placed on the table. The sherry, he said, could not be matched in Bunediii. He had got it a bargain by taking the parcel (about eight dozen), at' sixty-two shillings per case. " What will be the end of it all," said Smithson (igniting- a regalia at five for"half-a-crown) "for my part 1 don't know. There's an acceptance of mine due on the IGth of next, and how it is to be met beats me to know at present. I have a splendid stock laid in of mnuves and magentas in every style, but they won't mote at ten did., not reckoning the duty. Hung it," added Smithson, parenthetically, pushing the sherry towards me, " those infernal customhouse people will insist upon cash down for duties. Why can't they draw upou one like other people ?" "My dear sir," I said, '• it stiikes me that you, and many like you, altogether mistake the nature of the business to be done in a new place like Dunediu. The large number of people who have, within the last few months, landed on these shores, have come here to better their condition, to try a new field of enterprise. The population, at present, is a floating one. People have scarcely maile up their minds what they are going to be at—they have not settled down yet, consequently every one is living as close and as economically as possible. Rlaiives and magentas, with the many cost'y and fashionable goods displayed in your windows and those of many of your fellow tradesmen are not asked for because they can b« dispensed with for tha time being. People simply look for shelter and enough to eat nnd drink. By and bye when we come to know the country and sec our way somewhat more clear than we do at present, the sort of goods you cannot " move off' at present will come stea.lily into demand. Meanwhile economy must be the order of the day with all of us; you as" well as there.it. It is not getting a shop in a good stand, and opening it with a fine stock of goods that fortunes are made now-a-days. Thrift, patience, watching and meeting the requirements of the times, keeping expenditure within compass, and your eyes always about you, will probably in the long run do it, but nothing short of this will answer.'1 bmithson thought, looking at the subject in the way I had put it, that he was quite right, and remarking that he should " draw in a bit" wished to know if I could toil him where lie could get two or three cases of really good Byass's ale, as sherry was apt to make him bilious. I really could not, and I Lore thought I might gpntly urge my r.quest for the small account which had been so long standing, when Smithson said that really it ought to have been paidlong ago; he knows it ought, but as it hadstoodso long I might just as well let it go a little longer. Would I take two tickets for J 's benefit at the Princess' Theatre. He hud bought six, which w.'is rather more than he tumid well afford. Never mind the money; it could go off the score he owed me. It struck me at the moment that six tickets was perhaps a little more than Smithson, as he put it, could well afford. I declined, however, the proffer of making my account less in the way suggested, and was about to le ive, when I could not resist accepting Smithson's invitation to drive out on Sunday next. "I have engaged a dog-cart, old fellow," said Smithson. " It's only one, fifteen, for the day, and Tom Parker's going halves ; so it will be a cheap affair after all. There will ba plenty of room for you, and one wants a change after being hard at work all the week—don't he 1 Bon jour, won Jits." My next business was with Jumper. There was a little matter to be squared between us, leaving a balance in my favor. Jumper is in the commis ion line, and a general speculator. He prides himself greatly in being a clever financier, which, so far as I can make out, means with Jumper an aptitude for obtaining goods vipou credit. "Anyone," says Jumper. " can finance who has got plenty of money—that requires no art. But to operate extensively without means shows the real financier and true man of business.'' But e/en Jumper, when I called in at his office, complained and bewailed the bad state of things in Dunedin. He had bought a lot ot potatoes "on time," looking for the market to go up, and the mar ket had pQiie down. He had gone in for a parcel of hams, also "on time," and he could not stir them' at an advance of five per cent. He had bought a "piece of land on what he terms a rising piece of ground, hut what I consider as being on the top of a small mountain, and this he finds it impossible at present either to sell, lease, or let, although lie is quite confident that it will be the most valuable site in Dunedin very shortly, when some hill is cut down and a large hollow filled up, and the inhabitants move in the matter to have the roadway which leads to it ma;!e and metalled. But all this by the way. When I dropped in at Jumper's office he was in the act of admiring a very 1 aiidsonie and costly breast pin, manufactured from New Zealand gold. He drew my attention, and demanded my approval of the hijoii which he held between his thumb and forefinger. I hinted very gently that as times were so bud such an expensive article might possibly have been dispensed with, but Jumper assured me that it had not cost him a farthing. He had " financed," having taken it in exchange for some of the haps he could not move off at any price. He had also financed in the same way for two dozen Califomian shirts. It was true, he said, he did not want so many, but they would be sure to come in some time or other. He was sorry he could not balance my account just then. Would I take it out in shirts or hams ? He did not think I could do anything with potatoes. He had not enough cash to meet the demands of his washerwoman, who had just called for payment. He had told her so honestly at once. Honesty was the best policy after all. He ha-d tried a swap with her, but she did not seem to see it. Women were queer creatures. For his i^trt he never could make anything of them.

Now, Mr. Editor, the moral of all this is, as I take it, that many of those who complain of the badness of the times are the Smithsons and Jumpers of society. Men who come here \yith a vague notion that to settle down in a city thriving upon the product of a rich goldfield, is all that is necessary to ensure succors, and when they do not meet with it, lay it al to the "place/1 instead of to their want of foresight thrift, energy, industry, perseverance and patience. I am. Sir, yours &c, '■■■>■ JACOB.

We were the first to announce to the public in our last number the rumour that her Majesty's Theatro will be opened this season with an Italian company, under the management of Mr. Mapleson. This is vow a. fait accompli, and Mr. Mapleson is about to send 'forth a most attractive opera programme.— Courl Journal.