A WASHING-DAY TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 185, 5 August 1913, Page 4

A WASHING-DAY TRAGEDY.

THE LADY AND THE RANGER. AFTER AX ELUSIVE COW. Apparently the ranger's lot is not a happy one. The Mount Albert Borough Council got a long series of hearty laughs last night out of a letter forwarded by an aggrieved female ratepayer, who covered seven pages of note-paper with a bitter denunciation of the Council's ranger and poundkeeper. " I think it is quite time," 'she wrote, " that steps were taken to have no favouritism in the pounding of cattle. Our horse is not put on the road like others, but takes the panels down himself, no matter how they are tied. (''Quite a circus horse," commented the Mayor.) He was pounded this morning, while others are left. . . I have lived in this street for four years, and have never been able to keep a flower garden owing to straying cattle, and I am always troubled with 's cow. My next door neighbour has a garden of cabbages eaten with this cow." ''I would like to know," remarked the lady, further on, " if the ranger has any right to come into my p!:'.ce to get cattle which has come in while he is driving them. . .'. I had just put my washing out, and this cow dragged under them twice, and the poundkeeper after .it with his dirty horse doing the same thing. He drove it out, and let it come in again, only to do the same thing again, the result being that I had to take down half my clothes and wa-sh them over again. When I spoke to him about it he only snapped mc up, and said 1 should keep the gates shut. I can't go behind everyone that goes out to shut the gates after them. He said if I did not like it I knew what to do, so I told him I would put a letter in a-bout him. I could say a lot more," the writer concluded, " but I think this is enough to let you see how things are going on." Included in the letter were quite a lot of charges of favouritism and unfairness against the ranger in the matter of his dealings with other people's cattle.

Councillor Harris remarked that some of the charges were serious, and went on to -mention one which he considered particularly grave. "Tf that's right, Mr. Mayor," he observed, "I say it's wrong!"

The whole Council roared with laughter, and the speaker was told that he was talking like an Irishman.

" Well, I'm not an Irishman, anyway," protested Councillor Harris.

'" You were talking about cows," said the Mayor, who is Irish himself, " and you made an Irish bull!" (Loud laughter.) " The ranger tells mc, "added Mr. Coyle, " that he went to see the lady, but he didn't care to tell mc all the things she said to him." (Laughter.)

The Council decided to wait for a written statement from the ranger before doing anything.