Ascot Tobacco.

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 920, 22 August 1896, Page 10

Ascot Tobacco.

RESULT OF PRIZE COMPETITION.

Some little time ago, the local representatives of Messrs Cameron and Bros., manu. faeturers of the celebrated Ascot tobacco, furnished winter evening pastime for the gumdiggers and settlers in the trackless North, by offering a series of prizes for the best essays in prose orverse on ' Cameron's Ascot Tobacco.' The competitive contributions were to be forwarded to the Observer office, and the Editor of thiß journal was prevailed upon to undertake the duties of judge. He didn't exactly comprehend at the time what he was undertaking. The contract was a heavy one. These short essays poured in at an alarming rate. They came from the remote north, and the immediate north, and the north-east, and the nor'-nor'-east. They came from the nor'-nor'-west also. Indeed, they came from everywhere, and came in their hundreds and thousands. Every essay told the same tale. Ascot tobacco was the best tobacco that ever was since Sir Walter Raleigh or somebody else first invented tobacco and laid down Mb cloak for his adored queen to walk upon. The virtues of Ascot were descanted upon and exemplified in powerful prose, in lilting verse, and in humorous anecdote. For weeks, our editor stayed home from church — a thing he never does except under severe pressure — and fairly revelled in Ascot tobacco and competitive essays. And in the end he has made up his mind. The esßays were not marvels of literary talent, but they were to the point, and they knew a thing or two worth knowing about Ascot tobacco. And the best of them was the following, written by Harrie North, Poroti, Whangarei, to whom the first prize is awarded. List : — I 6tood on the wharf, dead broke — Not a copper iv my kit ; Hadn't a square meal for a fortnight, And thought I'd better git. The old clay pipe was empty, Had smoked matches for a week, When I picked up a plug of Ascot, And thought I'd better streak. Not that I'm naturally dishonest, But I really wanted a smoke, And if I'd known the owner was coming, I must have taken my hook. A man can do without beer, Or even meat and bread, But without a bit of Ascot It's better for him to be dead. You'll say this is the whine of the smoker ; I aasure you, my friend, it is not ; When down on your luck, if you only can get it, Try a pipeful of Cameron's Ascot. For I've camped in the bush all night with my gum. And oft-times I've growled at my lot, When watching the smoke curl from my old dhudeen, And fonnd the tobacco was not, Great ' Scott t Then I wished that Partridge was nearer, To get some of Cameron's Ascot ; Well, I'm off to the Poroti gumfields, Which of all jobs I like it the best — Because, you know, when you're weary and tired, You can sit down and take a good rest, To cut up some Ascot tobacco, And enjoy a smoke of Cameron's best. The second price is awarded to C. G. Taylor, Parua, Kamo, Whangarei. C. G. deserves it. He was at the point of death, when Ascot saved him. If this yarn doesn't entitle him to a second prize, then a good romancer has no honour in the Observer office. C. G. can't live now without his Ascot, so if he will kindly send along to Messrs Partridge and Co., Queenstreet, Auckland, he will get his prize in his favourite weed. Possibly it will save another life. And Harrie North's first prize is awaiting him at the same place.