ROUND ABOUT WELLINGTON.

Otago Witness, Issue 3833, 30 August 1927, Page 34

ROUND ABOUT WELLINGTON.

By

Pencarrow.

(Special for the Otago Witness.) August 25. Off to wider fields is Miss Nellie Scanlon, the well-known Wellington journalist. Miss Scanlon is travelling by Java and Singapore, and making- no haste on the way. Her headquarters will be in London, but from there she will push off to the Continent and wherever else the spirit leads her. This is by no means her initial venture. A few years ago she spent some months in America, where she has many interesting friends, not only in the journalistic world. She will probably be in the Riviera at Christmas time.

An antediluvian once wrote, “ To stay at home, my heart, is best.” He did not live in Wellington, where everything just now feels as if it were covered with blue mould.

“ If I don’t get away to-morrow, I’ll scream,” said a fond mamma last week. That night her ewe lamb developed measles. Presumably she is still screaming, and everyone else contemplates following suit. I am not the oldest inhabitant (yet), but in my time there has never been such incessant rain, such grey skies, and so little wind, nor do I ever remember so much sickness except during the epidemic—that nightmare of 1918. A chemist on Lambton Quay told me that on one day last week he made up 100 new prescriptions from doctors. He expressed all due sympathy, and contrived to keep a cheerful countenance. The great thing is to keep cheerful in these trying times, and by way of heartening up the place the city council this week announces it is improving Karori Cemetery, where £5O is to be spent on tree-planting immediately. Some years ago two dear old men came home to afternon tea at a house where I was staying. Very cheerily thev announced they had just chosen the burial plot for their family—“ a beautiful spot with a gorgeous view,” one of them said as he helped himself to a large muffin and accepted a cup of tea. So much depends on one's point of view. M e shall be glad when the spring comes. Young men here apparently cannot afford to allow their thoughts to” d-wcll on love (it is the cost of living, I am told, though some people think it is the pace which kills). However, their thoughts will turn to the open tennis, cricket, etc., and everyone knows that Karori is one of the best suburbs, especially popular since Marsden School moved out that way. Property is advertised for sale: " Ten minutes (more or less) from Marsden.”

Needless to say, the Hon. K. S. Williams, Minister of Public Works, touched a tender place when he announced in the House that farmers would have done better if they had spent less time and money on motor cars. If a less popular man had made such a statement, there would have been a pretty little scene. Few more popular men have sat in the New Zealand Parliament, and there is no more practical farmer in the country. From boyhood he has worked in the backblocks, and if he is a successful man, everyone admits he deserves to be so. He certainly wasted no time on motor cars, for until recent years there' were no roads up his way. and his life has been spent in the saddle. All farmers on the east coast have worked hard, and many of them have prospered. They have not forgotten their early struggles, and on the coast to-day there is many a settler who owes his start to their faith, sympathy, and financial backing. The big east coast stations have been a famous training school for much more than quarter of a century, and managers and shepherds recommended by owners up that way invariably receive an attentive hearing when they apply for jobs elsewhere.

But let us return to our muttons, which happen to be in Wellington. Some dear old diehards are responsible for the latest idea that all the aerials in the city are responsible for this incessant rain, and now the Maoris at Whakatane are certain that the real cause of a storm up their way is the filming (for a picture) of Te Kooti’s life.

I saw that old warrior once in my earliest youth. How was I to know that his wings were clipped? He terrified me. With a handful of his pals he clattered down into a little country village, riding what were probably sorry nags, but to me

they seemed fiery steeds. Awful stories of his cruelty had reached my ears, and I buried my head under the bedclothes and trembled until the cavalcade departed. Te Kooti had merely come for a drink at the little hotel, which at that time was a fashionable resort seven miles from Napier, .and we went by cab—quits a journey. To-day the cars take the place in their first stride and never notice it.

There is some bickering about the supervision of the men, once unemployed, now happily engaged on work provided by the enterprise of the council and the generosity of the public. The harassed engineers, now working overtime, find it necessary to explain that they cannot be in several places at once, and they have chosen good foremen. The Mayor, returning from Hawke’s Bay, speaks in glowing terms of that emerald countryside teeming with lambs, and he prophesies that the winter of -our discontent will soon be over. Soon to able-bodied men will come the call: ‘‘The country needs you.” Meanwhile, here in the city we do our best. Were I a Chinese gentleman I would say “ our poor best ”; but why be modest? Wellington has done her very best to help the unemployed, and it is a good best.