BUSH BOOR'S " JOKE."

NZ Truth, Issue 80, 29 December 1906, Page 5

BUSH BOOR'S " JOKE."

BRUTAL TREATMENT OF A STATION COOK. Agreement Broken, and Dumped Thirty Miles From Anywhere. There is an official, of Parliament House who also owns a station m the Wairarapa district, and from all accounts that station should prove a paying/one if keeping down expenses, by any and all means, 6an bring about that end. The methods used can best be illustrated by a little story.

Seventeen weeks ago a man engaged to act as cook on this party's station at a wage of 30s a week } to be increased to £2 a week as soon as shearing began, when the work would be heavier. At the end of three months, during which the cook had given every satisfaction, -shearing commenced and at the end of three weeks cookie was told that a cheaper man was offering his services and a mn of the ' Parliament House-cum-sta-tionbolder announced that he would give the man half a crown extra instead' pf 10s, for the extra work. Cookie refused to accept this, saying that the terms of his engagement were plain and he gave a week's notice. V At the end of that period the mailcart was to go /in the €0 miles to but' the cook discovered that *- the old sqiuatter-bille-t holder chose that trip to' travel in'- himself, so the man couldn't go ;, but the son reassured* him by saying he was going to drive m himself m a couple of days and would take cook along. This appeared all right, hut when they got half way the kind young station boss nulled up at a wayside pub, dumped the cook's luggage m the road and turned back, leaving the unfortunate man thirty miles from' the railway and he had to run up a bill for five days' accommodation before the mail cart came along and he got a lift the other 30 miles.

Thirty miles does not seem "much of a much" to have to walk, m this climate, and it would not be to an

outrdoor worker unencumbered, buit cooks are if anything worse, on the Shanks' 'pony act than even waiters or shop-walkers, and besides, not even a busbman would have tackled the job burdened with a trunk and a bag. It appears- as if this one-man-two-jobs gentleman wants to make money too fast, while the action of tlie son would a npear to have been dictated by sheer mean, naltry spite : dictated; no doubt, by his apeish idea of what constitutes a joke. Another joke of this bush boor's is said, to have been the awakening of the station "married couple," o' -mornings, per medium of a bucket of water sluiced over them as, .they lay m slumber. Evidently a "more" elegant place to keep out of can scarcely exist around this island.