George Herbert Gibson

“ He swore by the beard of the sacred oyster that she was an angel—called her his turtle and his pet (limpet, in fact) —and, while he besought her to fly with him and share a "grotter of hyster shells," he stated his intention of adhering to her heart like a limpet to its native rock, or the teeth of a skate to the finger of a too-confiding fisherman. At the conclusion of the banquet a speech was called for, and old Grampus rose. ”

“ Holding these views, we were naturally pleased to hear that our friends 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. ”

“ No leaf decays; no flower dies;
All nature seems as fair and bright
As, when beneath Judean skies,
The shepherds watched their flocks by night.
[In fair Judea's sunny clime,
Among its mountain gorges lone,
Those shepherds had a rosy time,
For wire-fencing wasn't known.
They were not prone to "knocking-down"
Of cheques or going on the spree,
For "pubs" and "shanties" were not found
Beside the Lake of Galilee.
They groaned not 'neath the squatters yoke;
A life of pure arcadian ease
Was theirs-ah! happy, happy blokes!
For this digression, pardon, please.] ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here, I thought (for I was unsophisticated) , is the very friend I am in need of, which will receive me with its thousand arms, laugh with me with its thousand mouths, weep with me with its thousand eyes, and whose thousand hearts will beat in unison with mine whether my mood be one of sadness or of joy; behave itself, in fact, like a species of benevolent and sympathetic Hydra, shorn of its terrors, and fit to take part in the innocent and arcadian recreations of the millenium, when the (literary) lion shall lie down with the critic, and newspapers shall not lie any more—even for money. ”

“ While the sun rays strike through his garments scant—
Is it there, dear mother, this wond'rous plant?
"Not there—not there, my child."
Or Southward, down where our brethren hold
Those keys of power, rich mines of gold—
That land of rumour and vague reports,
Alluvial diggings, and reefs of quartz—
Where brokers give you the straightest "tip,"
And let in in the way of "scrip;"
Where all men vapour, and vaunt, and boast,
And manhood suffrage rules the roast? ”

“ SOCIAL EVILS. I feel that any reader who has been long-suffering enough to accompany me thus far must be craving earnestly for a change of some sort, even though it but take the form of an oasis of indifferent prose in a monotonous Sahara of verse; I want it myself, and I know that the reader must yearn for it, even as the bushman who has sojourned long among the flesh-pots of remote sheep and cattle stations yearneth after the pumpkins and cabbages of the Mongolian market gardener. I am, therefore, going to write about social evils ”

“ His soul hath upward sped,
And Will hath left a sailor's 'bunk'
To share an oyster's bed.
We hope his resting place will suit—
We trust he's happy now—
Laid where the pigs can never root,
Lulled by the ocean's sough. ”

“ We have witnessed Shakesperian tragedies since with less satisfaction, and have respected undertakers proportionately in consequence. But for them we should never have known how much of the latent spirit of tragedy there is in horses' tails and feathers, and we especially admire the dramatic style in which they proclaim to the world the fact that another saint has gone to occupy his reserved seat in the celestial dress circle, or another sinner sneaked into his place in that "pit" which is notoriously bottomless, and where the free-list is by no means "confined to gentlemen of the Press." ”

“ Ever echo to the music of my wild unearthly snore!"
Quoth the Peeler, "'Tis the lawr!"
Thought on thought of bitter sadness, dissipating hope and
gladness,
Goading me to worse than madness, crowded on me by the
score;
Ne'er before incarcerated, how that Peeler's form I hated,
Cries for freedom, unabated—'wrenched from out my bosom's
core'—
Broke upon the midnight stillness, "Robert, set me free
once more!"
Quoth the Peeler, "Never more!"
Never since the days of Julian was there such a mass
herculean
Clad in garments so cerulean, with so little brains in store ”

“ However, I have gone too far to recede, and have concluded to throw myself on the bosom or bosoms of that animal and take my chances of annihilation.
One of my unsympathising friends assured me the other day that my book would certainly send anyone to sleep who should attempt its perusal. I gave him a ballad to read, and watched him anxiously while he skimmed a page or two. He did not sleep—not he, but a raging thirst overcame him at the fourteenth verse, and he begged me to send for a jug of "half-and-half" with such earnestness that a new and dreadful apprehension filled my breast. ”

“ I who have hobnobbed with the publicans, waltzed with the wheelwrights, done the lard i da with the pork-butchers' wives and daughters, danced coatillions with the tailors, and indulged in sootable amusements with the sweeps? Never!
I have retired from the pic-nic business now, and though my reports were not masterpieces of descriptive writing, and never wrung even the smallest tribute of gratitude from those they were intended to immortalize, I give a specimen or two to serve as models to those who hereafter may be called upon to report pic-nics for journals, religious or otherwise. ”

“ Would that these pages might be found to possess the subtle power of inducing "tired Nature's sweet restorer" to visit the weary eyelids of knocked-up humanity; that they might become a domestic necessity, like Winslows "soothing-syrup," and "a blessing to mothers;" that the critic—pausing midway in a burst of scathing invective against their literary and metrical deficiencies—overcome by their drowsy influence—might sink in dreamless slumber, and wake to sing in praise of their narcotic properties, and chaunt their merits as a soporific. ”

“ 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;" ”

“ Though the bosom of the ocean was apparently unruffled by a zephyr, terror and excitement raged beneath its surface. Influential members of the finny tribe darted hither and thither in a manner which indicated that something unusual was afloat, and the piscatorial republic was shaken to its very centre. The military (that is, the sword-fish) were under arms, or rather fins, at an early hour, and formed a roe in martial array. The less warlike betrayed their agitation in a variety of ways. ”

“ I know men who would put their wives down in the list as a matter of course; and others, fathers of families, who would include children. Few married men would omit mothers-in-law; most domestics would include work and masters and mistresses; and hardly anybody would exclude tax-gatherers. Fortunately, however, these well-meaning, but mistaken reformers, will have to take back seats on the present occasion, and leave me to touch on a few, at least, of what are legitimate and undeniable social evils. ”

“ Nor was this surprising; for were not the fishmongers and oystermen about to hold carnival—to celebrate the rites and ceremonies of their order? and, knowing this, could any member of the finny tribe remain unmoved, or even a molusc be calm?
In spite, perhaps unconscious, of all this, the jubilant fishmongers proceeded to the enjoyment of their pic-nic with light hearts. The oystermen, most of whom were natives, were appropriately clothed in shell-jackets, and wore barnacles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Adulteration of food, political dishonesty, "larrikinism," barbarism on the part of the police, lemonade and gingerbeerism in the stalls of theatres, peppermintlozengism in the dress circle, flunkeyism, itinerant preacherism in the parks—what a subject this last is, by the way, and how beautifully mixed up one's faith becomes after listening to half a dozen park preachers, of different denominations, in succession! ”

“ Saws (wise ones excepted) , axes, steels, and all other implements used in the trade, were, by common consent, left behind, and the only killing done was that accomplished by several fascinating young slaughter-men, whose hair and accents were oily not to say greasy in the extreme. One of these, who went in heavily for euphuism, told his inamorata that her heart was harder than his father's block, and the satire of her tongue keener than the edge of a certain cleaver in his parent's possession. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Even as I write, things which may be legitimately called social evils rise up before me in spectral array, like Banquo's issue, in sufficient numbers to stretch not only to the "crack of doom,"—wherever that mysterious fissure may be—but a considerable distance beyond it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I once held the proud position of occasional reporter to a weekly paper, and my mental calibre not being considered heavy enough, or my temperament sufficiently stolid to do justice to parliamentary debates, I was sent to report the pic-nics. In Sydney every trade gives one, and every private family about six in the course of the summer. Carpenters, butchers, barbers, blacksmiths, undertakers, even grave-diggers, all give their pic-nic during the season ”

“ He was not democratic, and he believed more in the horny-headed monsters than the horny-handed masses; still he liked to see a man rise by his own exertions; and, inasmuch as a king—Charles the First to wit—had shewn how easy was the transition from the throne to the block, he did not see why an ascent from the block to the throne might not be equally possible. ”

“ Old Wheels delivered an address, in which he stated that a bond of unity was the best tire for the public weal, and that if the felleys in the House wern't such a lot of (k) naves, they'd run truer, stick closer together, and endeavour to axelerate public business more than they did. He was proceeding to demonstrate that ——— was no more use in the House than the "fifth wheel of a coach," when one of the younger Wheels began to squeak in an agonizing manner. ”

“ I read this and a few other examples, and was straightway stricken with a desire to emulate this eccentric and somewhat difficult species of versification, and now with considerable diffidence, and a choking prayer for mercy at the hands of the critic, I lay my attempt before the reader. The following echo-verses are not on any account whatever to be understood as reflecting on the present or any past Government of this Colony. They are merely to be taken as shadowing forth a state of things possible in the remote future. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dancing was kept up with animation until a late hour. Old Tommy Hawk danced a porka, and his peculiar shambling gait called forth rounds of applause. Several games of chance were played for beef stakes.
A butcher who dealt largely in goat's flesh sang the touching Scotch ballad, "Oh, Nanny, wilt thou gang wi me," and old Pork Chops sang "Those evening chines" in a most affecting manner. The festivities continued until they could not very well continue any longer, and every body returned home perfectly satisfied.
THE OYSTERMEN'S AND FISHMONGERS' PIC-NIC. MON DAY was a great day. ”