SATURDAY'S DUST STORM.

North Otago Times, Volume CIV, Issue 13663, 4 September 1916, Page 2

SATURDAY'S DUST STORM.

•A-SOLILOQUY. (By "Z,») On Saturday afternoon a boisterous gale licked up the dust from the parched streets and smothered shop, shoppers, shopman and goods, residence and resident, visitor and passer-by, with a thick pall of line clay and small pebbles, while the borough water-cart reposed in the shade of the council yard, cmply and motionless,

The Shades of Hamlet rising from a dust cloud near the Town Hall steps, voiced the following soliloquy, within the hearing of a group of gasping, parched and dusty townspeople: "To choke, or no' to choke: that is the question; whether 'tis safer down the throat to swallow the germs and microbes from our daily (lust storm, or take up arms against j\. sleepy council ami by stem measures end- them. To choke; to die; no more, andjfull of dust to say we llee the dust storms and a Ihousaml deadly ills this town is heir to, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To gasp, lo choke, to die, perchance lo dream, ay, there's the rub; for in that death by dust what dreams may come, when we've been dusted off our parched streets, must make us pause. There's the prospect' that makes our snuffing out scarcely worth whole. "Why should we bear the pains of Oamaru's misrule: the dusty streets—the tradesman's horror grim—the bumps of bumpy roads, the smelly drains, the sleepiness of councils, and the jars the patient people of the town do take, when every soul might his quietus make, in our daily dust-storm? Who would rumpus raise; to growl and swear under the dusty pall, but that the council might bo sent to that far-off nowhere, from whose bourn no councillor returns. Dust chokes the growls of tradesmen, who loud noises oft would make. They seem content to swallow dust and all their protests shrill; for dust-storms do make dumb-men of us all. But, wait the first few growls of revolution, arc quite o'erwhclincd liy rumbles on the street, and thoughts of vengeance by great dust clouds prompted, lly from our minds as on the street (a week too late) a water-cart appears." Dust, dust, dust, Scatter thick on the city, 0 gale! But- I would that my tongue could splutter The muck I'm compelled to inhale.

0 well for (lie city's (own clerk Who sits in liis office nil day 0 well for liis Worship (he Mayor Who is always having his say

And (he empty water-cart stands Jn its haven close (o the mill .Hut 0 for a splash of its water so cool And a sound of the rumble that's still,

Dust, dust,'dust, How the shopkeepers rave in despair, But, full i-omiiionsciise, to a council that's dead s ■ Will never come back—l swear. After Tennyson (a very long way),