"There's Many a Slip."

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 265, 14 May 1907, Page 2

" There's Many a Slip."

It is astonishing what a lot of truth there is in many of the old adages, and how enormously one's success would be assured if counsel were given to their warnings. A Feilding Borough official, for instance, now believes that if he had remembered the old saying in time "not to count , your chickens before they are hatched," he would have been saved a great deal of annoyance, at the very j least. It appears that the capable secretary of the Feilding Fire Brigade had fallen in grace in the minds of some members of the Brigade, par- [ ticularly of ex-captain Cleland, and it was generally understood that he would be ousted at the annual elec- j tion last night. The difficulty was to find a substitute, and the choice fell on the Borough employee in question. Matters were carefully laid in train, the permission of the Council was obtained to the emplbyee in question doing outside work after hours, a proposer was found for the new man, and ex-captain Cleland i seconded his nomination. But the unexpected happened. The members of fche Brigade were willing enough to

show their loyalty to a man in the position of their captain who they thought to be in the right, but for that very reason they refused to be led by the nose in an attempt to oust ! a capable, honest, hard-working official, whose only fault in the eyes of his detractors was that he could not be influenced to do what he thought was wrong, even though his attitude was obnoxious to individuals. So fifteen of the Brigade honorably stood by their old secretary, and the supposed incomer only captured three votes besides the two nominators ; and was left to reflect on the vanity of human desires to his heart's content. We cannot say that we have much sympathy for the disappointed one, but it is an advantage sometimes to be able to point out that it does not always pay to resort to underground engineering to attain one's object in life.