Burke Manuscript

Burke Manuscript: Page 173

Transcript

One of the officials of the “sixties” was Mr James E. Graham. He was sort of Administrator in Bankruptcy, after an Act was passed, and at the time, to a certainty he was busy. He was tall, empty bellied man and the irreverent jokers of the day, taking that with the J.E.G. of his name, christened him “Jimmy Empty Guts”.

A little young curly headed Scotty, Jock McGregor, was his clerk. Poor Jock was out of luck. He ended it. At Temuka, or thereby, he and his young wife killed themselves.

The lads of those days had to amuse themselves as fun dictated for there were not many shows. But they sometimes originated one. Going along the other side of Birdsey’s I noticed a white bell topper on the pathway. “Oh, what does this mean?” I guessed it meant fun. It came. An elderly gentleman, whose name has escaped me, came every morning along up High St, and on that roadway, and he had a habit of kicking everything. He almost seemed to quicken his pace when he sighted “Who stole the donkey?” Coming up to it, he made one very vicious kick, good enough to send it to the other side of London. He was like the duck that grabbed the boiling hot potato, dropped it and waddled on. He gave a sort of pained limp and went on, but he heard a roar. The gay Birdsey crowd, for want of better, and knowing the old gentleman’s passion for kicking everything, had got hold of a new chum’s hat and under it inserted an iron 50lb weight. The old gent hurt his corns. In future he avoided that side like the pest.

Then they varied the play. Jack had a beautiful and, for the day, flash lamp put up. In the small hours, after the “gambling was over”, he was alarmed and disturbed by the supposed police, such as it was, that “his lamp was out!”. That was fineable. When he got up to investigate, a vicious old brute of a well known village Tom Cat, had charge of the lamp, and showed fight, smashing the glass to smithereens.