PREFACE TO THE PIC-NIC PAPERS,
IF I were asked to state the most noticeable feature of the social economy of Sydney—the thing which pre-eminently distinguishes her from other metropolises—I should, unhesitatingly, say pic-nics. 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; and why should they not? Is it for me to ridicule the practice? Shall I, who have been received as an honoured guest at all (and retired to make three half-pence a line out of an account of the proceedings), splinter my puny lance of satire against a firmly-rooted and meritorious custom? 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.