SHEEP OR MEN—WHICH ?

New Zealand Times, Volume XLI, Issue 9267, 7 February 1916, Page 5

SHEEP OR MEN—WHICH ?

A STUDY IN SIGNS OF RELATIVE VALUES. t

There was a military parade lu Wellington on Saturday, and many people came to town to see relatives among the soldiers. Some journeyed all the way from Waipukurau by a train whioh was expected to roach the city in ample time to permit the travellers to see those among the soldiers in whom they had a special interest. But travellers propose, and railway officialdom disposes. Though those people were hurrying to see, some, perhaps, for the last time, soldier eons, brothers, or sweethearts, they had frequently to suffer the tortures of Tantalus; for just when they had begun to think the “express" was going to live up to its name it would stow down, come to a jolting halt, and while the panting engine regained its breath, so to speak, some sheep-laden trucks would be added to the iron horse’s burden. After .a suitable interval for contemplation of the little glimpse of Arcady the guard would perform a (fantasia on hia whistle, the ■'driver would crank up. and the locpmotive, awaking with a start like a tired horse that had been prodded under the ribs, coughed and spat along its uneven lumbering way, disturbing the Andalusian serenity of the new scones that crept slowly into view. Thus the miles rolled under foot, till another Sleepy Hollow station was discovered by the wayside, and the travellers groaned at the prospect of a repetition of the sheep loading operations while their hearts were among the lads in khaki a hundred miles away. So the weary clay passed and Palmerston was reached too la to to connect with the Main Trunk express, and the travellers did not arrive in Wellington till after 5 o'clock. By. the merest good fortune other delays had occurred in connection with the military movements, and so relatives were in some cases at any rate able to exchange greetings with men among the soldiers.

But it was a “near thing” indeed, and the country people felj very much aggrieved, and were loud ill I'omplaints against the heartlessness of departmental methods. “Bo a few trucks of sheep count for more than our own flesh and blood?” one ajked indignantly of a pressman. The latter, of course, not being in the confidence of the authorities could not say, but ho had to admit that the evidence seemed to point that way.