WHAT I HEAR, WHAT I SEE, AND WHAT I THINK

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 610, 27 January 1879, Page 2

WHAT I HEAR, WHAT I SEE, AND WHAT I THINK

I haye had some talk with the man who is owner of the monstrosities, now exhibiting at Townley's Hall. He has, I find, seen a good deal of life in various phases, up to many things and a shrewd observer. I was interviewing him laat week when I happened to say that I had been rather Btruck with the sight of a calf with two heads which he had on view ; but that I couldn't help laboring under an impression that a calf with one head was much prettier and more natural, and much more convenient for the cow when she was suckling. He said that it was very true. He had long tried to get to the bott 0 m of that peculiar mystery as to why people paid money to see things which were not natural. For instance, he said, I gave fifteen pounds for that calf with two heads ; but if there was ssucha thing in the market as one with three heads, especially if it had two tails, with horns growing out of them, I could not have got it for three times fifteen ; but then see what a pot of money I should have made out of the thing ! Admission, three shillings ; children haff -price, and schools as per

arrangement. I said, would it not be possible to get a calf with three heads and two tails, including the horns 1 My friend mused for a time ; shook his head, and said he did not see how it could be done, at least not in these parts. If he was at home in America, where he came from, he thought the thing would be possible at a reasonable figure. He intended, at one time, to have gone in for a pair of Siamese twins ; but they were very expensive, even as dead and in spirits of wine ; but for live ones, it was altogether too much for Bmall capitalists like himself. But, continued my companion, you have greater natural curiosiin Gisborne than I can pretend to show. And what may they be I inquired ? Why, he said, there are young fellewß in this place that are fairly made and well-pro- [ portioned, but have got never an atom of brain. You know Shakespeare says, ''A time there was that when the brains were out the man would die." But here are men walking up and down past my show, and I swear that if they were opened up and anatomised, there would not be an ounce of brain to be found inside, or what little there was woidd be diseased. I said, my friend, you are satirical. He said no ;he didn't mean to be. He judged from what he had seen and reflected on. Changing the subject, I asked whether the exhibition paid him. Whether carrying a two-headed calf, an alligator, a crocodile, and a sea lion about the country, while giving twenty and forty shilling prizes and silver watches for a one shilling admission ticket, answered expectation. How did he do It 1 He explained that it was due to a knowledge of human miture he had acquired in his career through life. Woman's human nature paid him best. Woman liked to get for their money a great deal more than their money's worth. It has been said that "every woman is at heart a rake." He didn't think that. He thought that women, taking them in the lump were true to their husbands and their homes. But he thought that woman in her heart was a gambler, with a strong instinct for getting the better of people. She would go any lengths to get something, whether she wanted it or not, so long as she got it under cost price. Now, said the monstrosity man, you see I very often give away a thing worth a pound, or it may be more nor two pound, for an envelope enclosing a prize, which I sell for a shilling. Women are my best customers. Of course if I' pay as I go, which I do, I can't give away things in the aggregate costing me a shilling which stands me in a shilling. So I put a lot of things on my show tables. Some of these are worth many times the value of a shilling and some of them are not worth the money though mind you they are always worth something ; but women will buy envelope after envelope or she will coax her sweetheart or her husband to buy them for her in the expectation of getting something under cost price. Its women's human nature. Only let a woman believe that a draper is selling something under what he has given for it whan she rushes to the shop, She will buy summer goods in winter, and winter goods in summer if she only thinks she is bringing the draper to ruin while all the time he is building a villa residence at her expense and those like unto her. That's my experience. Now there's another experience. Look at that alligator. Why he wouldn't possess half the interest he does if he had not consumed a Chinaman. Of course if he had never eat a Chinaman he would still be an alligator and nothing else. But because of the Chinaman he becomes of considerable interest and is a great deal more valuable than if he had not eaten anything in particular. Why people should prefer an alligator that had eaten a Chinaman or why women should be so uncleanly as to walk the streets trailing a long skirt behind them to gather dust and collect it about their stockings, or why men should bet money on a horse which they have not the smallest idea why it should win, and who will have to borrow or something worse to pay if they lose, or why amateurs of anything always consider themselves superior to professionals are among the-' very few things I don't understands" Cameo.