What Brother Gardner Says.

Otago Witness, Issue 1813, 20 August 1886, Page 35

What Brother Gardner Says.

" I has been walkin' 'round on top dis airth mighty nigh my allotted time," said brother Gardner, as the band ceased playing, " and yit some things are jist as much a mystery to me as when I was 20. " How does it happen dat de folkses who am head-ober-heals in debt put on de moas' style ? " Why am it dat de man wid a head full of brains mus' play second-fiddle to a monkey wid a pocket ful o' money ? " How does it come dat while we purfess to ltib our naybor, nuthin' tickles us mo' dan to h'ar he has received a set-back and mus' take a cheaper house ? " How am it dat de man wid de biggest di'mun pin, an' de woman wjid the moas' real lace on her dress, get shot of deir counterfeit nickels sooner dan anybody else ? " Show me a party of fifty pussons gwine to make a trip to Yurup an' I'll pint out thirty-five who am stavin' off creditors to do it. "We complain that servant gals doan' know deir duties, an'we eddicate our darters to ignore housework as beneaf 'em. De hired gals of the next ginerashun won't be to blame if dey mix bread in the bath-tub and mash tatters wid a beer bottle. " When de preacher gits up in de p t ulpit an' splains dat de African heathen am pinin' fur tracks an' Bibles we shell out de cash wid hot fingers. When de widder calls at de front doah to inform us dat her chill'en am cold and hungry, an' ragged, we keep de cash keerfully salted down, an' wonder if an autograph album wouldn't help de fam'ly pull frew. " Seems to me, as I lean on de fence an' look over de landscape, dat a good sheer of dis world am wrong eand to. De shine of brass ketches de eye whar silver am unnoticed. A loud voice gathers a croud i sooner dan a sweet song. Society demands a { dress coat an' a white shirt, an' if dat demand am satisfied nobody will ax de wearer whether he has bin in State Prison or de State Legislachur. Let us now purceed to despatch de routine bizness of de eavinin'." — Detroit Free Press.