RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3, 3 January 1903, Page 4 (Supplement)

RANDOM SHOTS

""iAMno?

Borne write a neighbour's name to last; Some write — vain thought — for needful

cash. Some write to please the country clash,

And raise a din. For me, an aim I never fasa— I write for fun.

The holidays are over, and though it is not my role to play "dog in the manger," I feel mightily inclined to Kay "and thank goodness for it. w You see, a newspaper man gets none of the ordinary public holidays. You like your day's outing, you enjoy the races, or your trip to this or that resort, but you also like your paper ■before you start in the morning and when you get back at night. And it no doubt seldom occurs to you that a newspaper cannot manufacture itself any more than any other of man's creations. You outsiders —using that word inoffensive'y—have, many of you, !the oddest conception of newspaper life—at least, so one judges from your remarks. "Confound the paper," you cry, impatiently, sometimes, ♦there's nothing in it." But, my estimable friend, one can't manufacture news or occurrences. The Yankees <10, it is true, but when you know that •fake" news is "fake," it soon palls, arxd when you find that three parts of your paper consists of impositions which barely take the trouble to ds- ;- guise the fact that they are impositions, you soon get just as angrj a.i if there were no news at all. The cable man is—poor chap—"written dowu. an ass ,, almost universally because he doesn't send over more news. But -what if it's not there to send? Whr,t can the poor man do? After all, there can't be very much to tell you about bar races, excursions, and holiday making just at this time in the year, yet I have heard dozens of men growl at the dullness of the paper. It is just about as sensible to do this as it would be to rave at a fruiterer for lack of enterprise if he failed to fill your unreasoning demand for strawberries in midwinter.

But I've strayed far from my starting point, which was, that I'm glad the holidays are over, because I was amongst those who had to work. It is a selfish sentiment, but one feels like that occasionally. For it is undoubtedly exceedingly disagreeable, and disorganises all one's better feelings, when one has to work when all the world is at play. Work is usually agreeable enough. I don't know what we should do without it, even if it were not necessary for bread production; but when the holiday atmosphere of Christmas and the New Year strikes one, the most congenial labour bectme? a weariness to the flesh. It isn't that we grudge your holiday—we who have to keep our noses to the grindstone—not a bit of it, !but we feel unsettled because we can't chare it, and are g-lad to shake down into the regular, ; grooves again. You have probably felt something akin to this ;sensation inverseday. For if it is disturbing to work when others are holiday-making, is it not thrice delightful to play when others are, in the admirable slang of this colony, "at hard graft"? Is there any single instant of your holiday more enjoyable than when driving Sctva to catch your boat or train, free for so many days or weeks, you pass the long procession of "daily breeders" going- to their offices, a procession in -which you took your part only yesterday, but from wXose ranks of routine you are dismissed for a season. You think blisstfiilly of your closed desk, your empty chair, the letters you have not to answer, and if you don't thank your stars for one of the keenest pleasures of life you are a hopeless ing-rate, that's all.

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Apropos of holidays. I am delighted to see that both down South and here there is considerable agitation going forward with regard to the extension of excursion fare dates beyond January 2. Several papers, and a host of correspondents, follow the lead given in these columns a week or 80 ago, viz., that it is positively cruel to hold out so tempting , a treat as these cheap fares offer and then snatch it away before a very large number of us have any chance of taking advantage thereof. The proportion of people whom business keeps in town during Chrismas and the New Year weeks is very large, and, besides this, there is the no inconsiderable section who, for sentimental and family reasons, like to "keep hristsnas" in their own homes. The great [railroad companies of the Old World, especially those of Britain, France, and Switzerland, invariably arrange excursion rates during a well denned holiday season, and it pays handsomely. On a purely commercial <l>asls, therefore, excursion fares migiit t« granted. But, apart from this, it is desirable that both our young and old folk should . aye every facility of seeing their beautiful country.

tttttttttt

During , the past month, "but Specially during , the last week or so, several letters have reachec 1 me com-

plaining' of the sins of omission and

commission on the i art of shop assistants in some of our large.* drapery establishments. The subject is a delicate one to handle without personal experience, for I am well aware ihow prone grumblers are to exaggerate; but there seems so great a consensus of opinion that thinly veiled insolence, incivility and stupidity are rife that it appears to me there must be serious <a«n for complaint. One lady,who encloses her card, and whose name I know, declares that in a certain smart establishment the of £upercilious superiority with which eLe was received, because her garments were not in the latest"fashion. was so pronounced that it attracted

the attention of, and evidently gave great amusement to, some very smart ladies (?) purchasing ..t the same counter; whereat, seeing a chance to score, the young salesman, a veritable Adonis, surpassed himself, acting at the richer purchasers, and becoming at last so openly insolent that my correspondent rose and . asked to see the manager, whereat my lady-killer came off his high horse with all the speed of a cowardly nature, and the business proceeded on more proper lines. Another complainant, an Auckland artist of repute and position, wished an art drape, and entered a well-known soft goods emporium for the same. The fact of a man purchasing evidently appealed to the sense of humour of several young women busily employed in whispering, for they giggled at him incessantly and obviously. The juvenile gentleman who condescended to serv utterly declined to treat the affair seriously, and on being asked for crushed strawberry colour brought a green. It was pointed out this was not the tint, so two blues and another green were shown. Patiently my artist correspondent explained that cruc-ed strawberry or some kindred art shade in terra-cotta was what he desired. He was shown another green, and the suggestion put forward insolently that green was far better for a studio. Then the artist "said things" and demanded the head of the department, from whom, under examination, was wormed out that there was no material of the colour wanted in stock. But why not have said so at first?

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It must not be forgotten, of course, that there is the other side to this question. Many shoppers are selfish, and absorb the time and attention of servers to an extent which must be perfectly maddening, and which perhaps might seem to justify some retaliation when occasion offers. At the same time a shop assistant knows, or ought to know, what she or he undertakes -when accepting such a position. Pretty well every trade and profession has its bores, and its unmitigated nuisances. In such an office an this men tfiop in to gossip or ask senseless questions, questions which they could easily answer for themselves at the library that is, but if we who are paid to see these people and answer then) lost our tempers, and were insolent, we should probably be discharged, and rightly so.

■£4 7 i£"i"i"$"l? i £ ,, fr , i7

Yet, as I have said, shoppers are often senselessly and stupidly selfish. For example, on Christmas Eve a well-known toy-shop presented the appearance of a football scrum, an 1 those who went through it said it felt like one. They got no sympathy from me. Why could they not shop before? They knew what toys th.--y wanted. Pure thoughtlessness, of course, or selfishness, for the terms are interchangeable.

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My attention has been drawn to a probably heedless but to some persons n very serious and annoying lapse on the part of the morning paper, whereby one of the applicants for the important position of Harbour Board engineer, gets a very barefaced and obvious puff at the expense of the very numerous other applicants, who have not had a friend at court in the London office of the paper In a prominently placed local on Monday morning the following appeared: '"Writing on November ai, our London correspondent says: 1 hear that among the candidates for the engineership under the Auckland Harbour Board there will be one of considerable prominence in the engineering- world. Mr. A.8.C., M Inst C E who, I am told, has offered himself for the position, has been actively engaged in cognate work for more than a quarter of a century," etc., etc, the puff extending for twelve or fourteen more lines, and winding up: "So if he should prove to be the chosen of the Auckland Harbour Board, it would appear that Auckland will acquire an engineer of d,strnct prominence and experience." Without imputing to those responsible anything more than somewhat # gross carelessness in allowing so obvious a iob advt. to slip into its literary columns, one cannot but sympath.se with the aneer and annoyance of those less fortunate applicants not in a position to secure so splenjd an advertisement of their worth. Efforts such as this in an important paper to srive "a leg up" to any candidate, and by influence to affect an appointment of such public importance are to be deprecated, and the incident, thou-h probahiv unintentional, is none the less regrettable.