WANTED-WORK!

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 133, 12 June 1909, Page 6

WANTED-WORK !

SIXTY MEN FOR ONE JOB. SCENE IN A WAREHOUSE. Outside a certain warehouse in Wellington at 10 o'clock this morniug, and inside up the stairway to t-he third floor, all sorts and conditions of men wore waiting patiently. They looked not unlike a queue at the theatre door anxious to get good seals at a good show. From their conversation, it was easily perceived that they were looking for something somewhat less easy to find in thesa times — work. They were applicants for a job. In last night's ii J ost had appeared an advertisement — "Wanted, smart man for store. — Apply ten o'clock Saturday" — and they were applying. There were fully sixty of them, a respectable, strong-looking lot of men, one or two stylishly attired. "I thought he was the manager," said one man, referring to a figure in fashionable raiment, "but he's only after the job, like the rest ot us." Another man yawned audibly. "He's been up all night waiting to get first say," was the comment. A telegraph boy came along. "I've got the job," he cried, holding up an envelope. "Givo it me," said one applicant, with subtle humour. He was in the back of the scram, and made as if he wanted to get to the front. However, the telegraph boy declared him off-side, bored his way through, and was lifted over the final press into the doorway. "Hurray !" A thin cheer announced the opening of the door. By and by an applicant emerged, to be greeted with, "What did he say?" "How did you get on?" "Got the job?" "He says he will see you all," was the reply, as the man who had seen the manager took a short cut, , climbing across the narrow well to a lower tier of stairs. They were a cheerful crowd, though, and took their sorrow^ gladly enough under the circumstances. They waxed witty over their tragi-comical situation. Privately, however, one or two confided that times were really bad, and were going to be worse. "I know a shop — a plumber's shop — where they have nobody at all now : and they have been running thirty years or more. Houses are sacking hands everywhere. Sydneytf — Sydney's better, but Sydney's being overrun with chaps from here, and every week sees a boatload of immigrants to make it worse. Still, things are bad all over the worM, and it's no good grumbling. Timesll change." And as applicant after applicant interviewed the manager, the crowd gradually melted away.