WEEKLY WHISPERS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXXII, Issue 24, 29 January 1898, Page 2

WEEKLY WHISPERS.

Ij there's a hole in a' your coats, I rede ye, lent V it. A chiefs amang yc taldn' notes, And faith he'll prent it. — Burns Tho city turncock has had it pretty well all his own way with the unfortunate and often unconscious owners of dripping taps, and not quite so much of his own way with the conscious and not-to-be-pitied owners of the romantic tomato who watch for his coming, and turn off the hose at the psychological moment. =# * # There is every reason to believe that tho Corporation turncock does his duty impartiallly and foarlossly. But the trouble is that he overdoes it. He seems to think that his function is to securo prosecutions, which is a mistaken notion : His duty is to prevent waste, If he saw a tap merely drinping- it would be wiser, kinder, more politic°to turn it off and teii tho householder to be more careful, than to consider such an o /ent, generaUy an accident, a matter for report and prosecution. Moreover, it is really unpleasant to have ono's back premises invaded, and it is the duty of the officerto Keok admission, not to take it as a right. # # * It may bo urged that if he does not " snoak " in he will catch no one ; but this is fallacious. If a, tap be really out of order and a householder neglects to have it repaired, thus wasting water, thero is no time betwoen tho arrival of the inspector and his admittance to send for a plumber ond effect alterations. Hence the delinquent can be caught without abrogating the Briton's privilege ot his house being his castle. As to taps which merely drip but which are in good order, in nine cases out of ten the drip is accidental, and the turncock would do better service and save more water if when he saw such a tap in his peregrinations he turned it off. # * # It is an unpleasant necessity to bo so extremely careful of tho water, but it need not be rendered mare unpleasant still by a somewhat over-strained senso of duty on the part of a minor official. Householders are in a ferment of nervousness about dripping taps, and life is not worth living if one has tq fro nboutwith dread on his shoulders and the brass handle of a water tap on his mind, fearful lest a careless turn too little by a servant girl or child should result in a bit of blue paper an,d a, qase at Court. It is about time «o,tne discrimination was used, not only in the matter of reports of wasto qf water-, but also in tho manner of discovering that wasto. Thero are recognised ways and means of obtaining on. franco to tho backyards of residences; and, as oven, bailiffs havo to bo circutn.spoefc by law, the least ono may domaiul of a Council's ofheor is sUnihir oirenmspection. « # i Again, what is wasto, and how is it to be defined ? Take two typical cases. A resident with a keen sense of duty as a citizen and to his neighbour abstains from watering his lawn and garden evqn in permitted hours, and so ruins them, and economises bath wator, because of the drought, Bn,t. one day there is an accidental drip at a tap, tho turncock sees it, | and the resident is roported, proseouted, I and perhaps fined for " waste." Next door, a ho.usehal.dor not only uses the buss in permitted hours, but he also avails himself to tho full of tho by-law which permits him to use buckets and tubs, and so keeps his garden blooming. Ho fills his bath for tho merest tvftghj ana I takes no trouble of any sort ta do his j duty by his fe|jfHV:Vefiide'nts. But he has no drij\ning tap, so tho turncock can't get at him. Truo the Council may com« pel him to use a meter ; but cab, a known case be quoted wh.ere -fliis punishment l^as bean, resorted to ? No. The householder who really economises with the water may be fiuejd for waste, while the wasteful net-son sticks his tongue in his ohoek and may havo the best of it, * # # As to hoso-user-n, If they are disposed ' to break the by-laws to. save their toroa.(.oas they are generally one to,o many for | the turncock, for nothing is easier than to keep a good lookout and turn off the tan UeioreTia comes. It is those who do i nqt wish to break tun law, those who aro most concemed: nnd anxious to observe it, who are most likely to Buffer from the system of prosecution, whioh some dorrt hesitate to'term a persecution., « * *j It is needless here to reiterate the view thai; Nelspn, which owes so much to her reputation as a city of gardens, nap-jot af» ford to be too economical with, water. A glance at the por v returns of market gardon produce sent away, and another at the flowers which have drooped and the shrubs whioh have wilted during the drought, will convince anyone. 04 ths cent

per cent return the soil yields for every 1 drop of water it absorbs. And it would be interesting to know how much of the city rates is paid out of the product of the soil irrigated by the city s water supply ? Hence one is not very indignant when he learns that Tom, Bill, Jack, and Harry are saving tboir tomatoes at tho expense of the by-laws. * « # However, the rain has come in " dribs and drabs, and more is on its way, arid it is hoped that this unpleasant and obnoxious water question will be once more laid aside for a season, *- * * By tho bye, while on the subject of water, I have been requested to draw attontion to Monday's fire on the Waimeastreet heights, and to ask why in the name of common sense the property is connected with the low-level instead of the high-level supply ? T^n thfl water was needed the official in charge of the pipes naturally turned off the low-level supply, thinking that the honse was furnished trom the high-level pipes. The result was that no water was available. Had it not been for a tank on the premises and another at a neighbour s, the house might have been burnt down. One would think the term "high-level" meant what is said j but it is a revelation to know that a, place, which one has to climb is, technically, on the flat. It is like those cases in which a fellow is reported dead, and the coroner and the registrar refuses to believe his own assurance that hois alive and kicking. * # * The laws he makes have got into the Premier s very tongue. At Kumara the other day, a West Coast paper says, he gravely told his audience "how the tioops at the Aldershot review were suddenly pulled up, and stood like statutes/' Just before this the Premier had taken a joke out ot the local town crier for the latter's mispronunciation of some word * # * By the bye, while on the subject of politics news come from the South that during the industrial inspecting tour of the, nember for Nelson at Jubilee time, from tr,/?",' bn " kept him away from the Nelson celebration; he posed so many of his entertainers with the belief that he was an '• Oppositionist." How was this, and why ? I„ it not also whispered by a small bird that in due time P;* h ,; h \ s digged for himself by t-H. U^ h and coquetting TJ? j iu "dependence which will not stand the crucial test of a division? Verb, saj). sir//'. MOFUSSILITE.