meditated a pic-nic, and we are still more gratified to be able to
lay before the public the only reliable report of the proceedings in
existence. The day was everything that could be desired. Huge masses
of black cloud lay piled away to the south'ard, imparting a sombre and
funereal aspect to everything, and the spirits of the excursionists rose
in proportion. The picturesque cemetery of Haslem's Creek was the spot
chosen for the celebration of the festivities, and the cheerful recesses
of its cypress-shaded labyrinths that day re-echoed outbursts of
merriment which must have been particularly trying to misanthropic
ghosts. Every available hearse and mourning-coach was pressed into the
service to convey the holiday-keepers to the mortuary railway station,
from which a special train was to start at nine sharp, and the party
in full gala costume--hat-bands, gloves, plumes and feathers--presented
quite a lively appearance as the cortège moved down Brickfield Hill, the
band playing "The dead march in Saul."
Arrived at the scene of the intended festivities, a luxurious _al
fresco_ banquet was set forth, the numerous marble slabs in the vicinity
making the most delightful substitutes for tables imaginable, and the
epitaphs and inscriptions forming an agreeable mental repast after the
grosser bodily appetites had been subdued.
Messrs. Compagnoni, on this occasion, surpassed themselves, and
the black-puddings, and other funereal delicacies--served on
(brass)-plates--were decorated with "In memory of," "Requiescat in
pace," and other appropriate mottoes calculated to raise the spirits of
the party, and promote hilarity in the highest degree. Old Elmplank said
he hadn't had such a lively time, or felt in such good spirits, since
the measles were around that time three years. Meanwhile the young folks
were: enjoying themselves, and fun and flirtation wore carried on in
a decorous manner, out of respect to the emblems of mortality by which
they were surrounded.
An amiable young coffin-maker, with the most fascinating hearse-suit
appendages, made great inroads on the heart of Miss Grace Bugles. He
requested her to enter his heart, which he compared to an unoccupied
tomb, and reside there rent free. Should love like his, he asked, be
"coffined, cribbed, confined" within the narrow limits of a flannel
waistcoat? No; he invited her to come to his arms, shroud herself in
his bosom, and stop the process of cremation which was going on in his
heart.
Songs and recitations were in the programme. Miss Bugles sang "Those
funeral bells," and "The old elm tree," and her admirer gave them a
Bacchanalian, or rather a coffin-nailian ditty, with a chorus of "Bier,
bier, beautiful bier," and a skull and thigh-bones accompaniment, which
provoked thunders of applause; and when old Tassels, of the mourning
livery-stables sang,
```"But one golden tress of her hair I'll twine
```In my hearse's sable plume,"
there was scarcely a dry eye in the assembly.
There were no healths drunk, such a custom being considered out of
character with the proceedings, and not conducive to the prosperity of
business generally. Undertakers who were sociably disposed took each
other's measures, composed epitaphs, and talked about cremation. Old
Elmplank, in his speech, said that any allusion to such a mode of
disposing of the dead wounded him to the quick. "Introduce that process,"
he said, "and the whole romance of a funeral was done away with. The
invention," he added, "was worthy of a cove as was mean enough to
drink another cove's ealth." But even undertakers cannot keep up at the
high-pressure pitch of hilarity for ever, and as evening drew on, the
rain having been falling heavily for several hours, the cemetery was by
common consent voted damp, and a general move was made for the railway
station. The party returned to Sydney, well satisfied with their outing,
and the number of colds caught must have made business lively for the
next six months.
THE HAIRDRESSERS' PIC-NIC.
|EVEN barbers require change of (h)air occasionally; consequently
there were no dissentient voices when Potts proposed an excursion, and
suggested the Gap, where the "yesty waves" seem never to tire of their
monotonous occupation of shampooing the South Head. The pic-nic took
place eventually among the romantic glades in the immediate vicinity
of Pearl (-powder) Bay, where the "maidenhair" (capillis veneris) grew
luxuriantly--having been neither cut by the north-east wind, nor brushed
by machinery--while the rabbit and false-hare frisked fearlessly among
solitudes seldom disturbed by the presence of man, and that beautiful
bird the antimacassowary flew with well-oiled pinions from branch to
branch of the Eucalipsalve.
It might be imagined by ignorant people that hairdressers, who pay so
much attention to the adornment of the outward man, would be apt to
forget the requirements of the inner entirely; this, however, was not
the case, jugged hairs and barbercues being among the least of the
delicacies provided.
Of course there were speeches. That old demagogue--Bearsgrease,
shampooed, no, pooh! poohed everything, everybody else. Being
a wig-maker, it was natural that in politics he should be a Whig;
and though, as he said, he had never appeared as a candidate for
Parliamentary honors, or been at the head of an electioneering poll, he
knew as much about heads and polls as some who had.
But why enlarge on all this? Can we not imagine how young Potts led Miss
Glycerina Crimpington for a stroll by the sounding sea, and directed
her attention to the magnificent crests of the billows, fresh from
the curling-tongs of Nature, tumbling over one another, and doubling
themselves into such exquisite "frizettes" and "waterfalls" that they
were enough to excite envy in the breast of any young lady, especially
if she happened to be a hair-dresser's daughter.
Can we not picture to ourselves the thousand and one incidents which go
to make up what is called a pic-nic? How some were stricken hungry,
and others sentimental; how some satisfied their cravings with kisses,
others with pie; how Potts charmed the ear of his adored Crimpington
with recitations from "Locksley Hall," and the "Hair of Redcliffe;" how
the young folks danced the Kalydorians (arranged by Rowlands); and last,
not least, how the old folks got maudlin on limejuice and glycerine, and
talked of the days when their feet were as light, and their chevleures
as heavy as those of any young scalp-lock trimmer present We can, I
think, imagine all this so it will not be necessary to say more than
that the whole thing was a thorough success, especially Potts's song of
"(H)airy spirts round us hover," with a comb accompaniment, after which a
general stampede was made for the boats.
THE GREAT CRICKET MATCH.
BREWERS v. PUBLICANS.
``The day was wet, down poured the rain
```In torrents from the sky;
``Great coats, umbrellas, were in vain,
```But every lip was dry.=
``The clouds seemed disinclined to part,
```The wind was from the _West_,
``Yet worked each brewer's manly heart
```Like (y) _east_ within his breast.=
``Along the road each brewer spent
```His coin in frequent drains,
``F or mere external moisture went
```Against those brewers' _grains_.=
``And with a bright triumphant flush,
```Their Captain, Mr. Staves,
``Swore they should crush those sons of lush
```Who dealt in "tidal-waves"=
* Tidal-wave--a large glass of colonial beer.
``For, speaking of the L. V. A.,*
```The brewers said, and laughed,
``"A most efficient team were they
```For purposes of draught."
``'Twas thus they talked upon the way
```Until they reached the ground;
``But in their friends the L. V. A.,
```Rum customers they found.=
``I havn't space to speak of all
```The glories of the match--
``Of every well-delivered ball,
```And every well-caught catch.=
``I fain would tell of Mr. Keggs
```(They spiled and bunged his eye)
``Of Barley-corn, and how his legs
```Got twisted all a rye;=
``How Stoups, the umpire, stood too near,
```And came to grief and harm;
``How, when he fell they gave him beer,
```Which acted like a barm;=
* Licensed Victuallers' Association.
``Of Hope, who keeps the Anchor bar
```And vendeth flowing bowls
``(My feet have often been that far
```And anchored fast their soles)=
``Mark how he bustles, snorts, and spits--
```His brow he mops and wipes,
``And though I couldn't praise his hits,
```I'll gladly praise his "swipes;"=
``Of Corks, who funked the second ball,
```And by a sudden turn
``Received the straightest one of all
```Upon his ample stern.=
``He raised a loud and fearful roar--
```With fury he was blind,
``And, though they called it "leg-before"
```He felt it most behind!=
``Of Marks, the scorer--best of men!
```Sure everybody talks;
``He chalked the runs correctly when
```He couldn't walk his chalks.=
``Despite the flasks of monstrous size
```He'd emptied to the dregs,
``He scored "wides," "overthrows," "leg-byes,"
```And runs attained by legs.=
``For all the ceaseless rain which flows,
```The rival teams care naught;
``Though runs were made by many a nose,
```And many a cold was caught.=
``Inside and out they all got wet--
```Each drank what he could hold;
``I'm sure a bowl was overset
```For every over bowled.=
``The daylight fails; at length 'tis gone:
```There's little left to tell;
``For as the shades of eve drew on
```The stumps were drawn as well.=
``Then to the tent each man resorts:
```On food intent were they.
``Who won the sports? the pints and quarts--
```The gallant L. V. A.=
``Beneath the canvas let us pass--
```Old Bottle-brush was there,
``And well he filled his empty glass,
```And well he filled the "chair."=
``At length the Maltsters cleared the tent,
```And several hops ensued;
``But stay! Both time and space are spent--
```In truth, I must conclude.=
``A vict'ler rose amid the host--
```A burly man was he--
``"My lads," he said, "I'll give a toast,
```And here's my toast d'ye see:=
``"John Barley-corn, the king of seeds!"
```And round the glasses go,
``"For that's a corn that ne'er impedes
```The light fantastic toe!"=
|IF any reader has conscientiously borne with me even unto the end, he
may be ready to exclaim--"But where are the 'Southerly Busters?' No
allusion to them except in the title and frontispiece. It's been a dead
calm all the way."
Gentlest of a proverbially gentle class, what you say is perfectly true;
but I have excellent precedent for this inconsistency. No one, not even
an evangelical parson, sticks to his text now-a-days; and the gentleman
who objected to being told "in mournful numbers" that "things are not
what they seem," was a self-deceiving visionary who wanted to close his
eyes to what everyone else knows to be an established fact. An M.P.'s
speech on free trade seldom alludes to the subject; the daring feats and
marvellous situations depicted outside a circus are never seen inside;
light literature, advertised as such, is proverbially heavy; --------'s
"Vermin Destroyer" has rather a nutritious and invigorating effect on
vermin than otherwise, according to my experience; Young's "Night
Thoughts" were written in broad day-light; and few can have failed to
remark the absence of pork and the presence of cat in a restaurant
pork-sausage.
The author of the most confused piece of literary mechanism that ever
was printed, calls it "Bradshaw's Guide."
[Illustration: 230]
Did it ever guide anyone anywhere except to outer darkness? Did it ever
awaken any other feeling in the bosom of a deluded traveller than a
thirst for revenge? Bradshaw merely followed the universal rule of
contraries when he christened his mystifying treatise a "guide," for
none knew better than he that "throwing a light on a subject" means
involving it in gloom and obscurity, as surely as that "just one glass
more, and then straight home," means twenty, and the most circuitous
route the neighbourhood will admit of. I trust I have said enough to
vindicate the somewhat obscure and deceptive title of this book; or, at
any rate, to avert the worst catastrophe an author can dread--that of
being blown to atoms by a Southerly Buster of Public Opinion.
End of Project Gutenberg's Southerly Busters, by (AKA Ironbark) G. H. Gibson