South Taranaki News

Taranaki Daily News, 8 February 1928, Page 2

South Taranaki News

(From Oar Own Reporters.)

MONTH'S LABOUR FOR IDLE MAN

t J.P. GIVES HIM HALF A CROWN. FOUND DRUNK ASLEEP WITH PIGS. Hailing from nowhere in particular, the doings at Normanby of Peter George, alias George Robinson, on Saturday resulted in his arrest by Constable Pigeon, and his appearance yesterday morning before Messrs. L. A. Bone and R. S. Sage, J.’sP., in the Hawera Magistrate’s Court, charged with being idle and disorderly with no visible means of support. A sentence of one month’s imprisonment with hard labour was im posed. Although defendant pleaded not guilty he said nothing else. Defendant, a man of 45 years, arrived at Normanby on Saturday, said Constable Pigeon, and the same evening was found drunk and was brought before the Court at Normanby, was convicted and discharged, and ordered to pay 2s 6d car hire. As defendant had only 6s the Justice returned the 2s 6d to him, while Constable Pigeon provided him with a quantity of sandwiches and a pair of socks and advised him to keep clear of hotels and to leave the town. At the railway station, later, Constable Pigeon discovered him chasing the children waiting for the train and again warned him to take to the road. But he preferred not to go. Lost to the world in deep slumber, the constable found him later with his bed in the slush under a platform for. loading pigs. The pigs were grunting noisily, but defendant slept on unconcerned until he was rudely awakened and arristed. His 6s had dwindled to 2d.

MR. W. R. MORRIS IN HAWERA. Mr. W. R. Morris, managing director of the Morris Motor Company, of England, accompanied by Mr. H. Seaward, director, Mr. W. Hobbs, private secretary, and Mr. N. Seeman, the firm's representative for Australia and New Zealand, arrived on a brief visit to Hawera on Monday afternoon and were met by representatives of the motor trade and business people at the Borough Council Chambers. The Mayor, Mr. E. A. Pacey, on behalf of the citizens of Hawera, extended a cordial welcome to the visitors. Mr. E. Dixon also added his felicitations on behalf of the Hawera Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Morris addressed those present on th© same lines as already published in the News. EXPERIENCES ON A TRAMP. TWICE ROUND THE NORTH ISLAND. TWO YEARS’ ENDLESS TRUDG’NG. He reached Hawera yesterday when the sun was hottest and the heat waves were 'blinding. With measured trudge he passed by, travel-worn, weary ..nd dusty from head to foot. A stick was in his hand, on his back a pack containing all his worldly goods; on his brow perspiration and the wrinkles and creases of eare. Eyes followed his bent form with casual curiosity, knew at once his calling, experienced varying emotions and formed various judgments. Some sympathised and others censured. Let the traveller speak for himself, for he had walked hundreds of miles in a period of two years.

“I’ve met little luck for months,” he declared, gazing at the ground. “During hay-making coming down the coast and in Taranaki I had occasional work, but in the towns I cannot stay. The police keep me going because I have no money, am unkempt and a stranger. It’s a case of find a job to-day or move on. I have been asked ‘to wait a few days,’ but it eannot be done. Even when hungry if. food is asked for arrest is probable.” It was pleasant sleeping out in this weather, but, in the winter time —he shfugged his shoulders. TIMBER MILLS CLOSE DOWN. He had been a sailor, he said, and for many a voyage had been in the forecastle between Europe and Australian and New Zealand ports aboard windjammer and steamer. Until three years ago ho had never been out of work one day, and until 1925 had worked constantly for eight or nine years as a mill-hand in the timber industry bet w ?en Taihape and South Auckland. But then came an accident and for eight months he lay in hospital, first at Raetihi and then in Wanganui. Discharged, he walked through the timber mills in the King Country, but hands were being put off instead of being taken on, wbilj some mills were closing down. From the King Country the traveller tramped on to Arapuni and secured a job at the power dam works, which lasted for several weeks, bringing cash to purse, putting stouter boots on his feet, and meaning a bed to sleep in and a roof over his head. Then 45 men were discharged and the traveller turned to the highway and passed through Te Kuiti and, by many stages, on to New Plymouth, and to Hawera for the first time. Sometimes he would strike i casual job cutting gorse and blackberry, and he would spend a week or so engaged at one point, but it was generally trudge, trudge by day under a pack and a burning sun, and sleep under a hedge or the stars by night. From Hawera, footsteps rarely punctuated by aoeepted offers of “lifts” on the way, took him via Wanganui, Palmerston, Dannevirke and Hastings, to Napier, where he secured several days’ work loading wool on the wharves. “I earned good wages there,” said the luckless tramper, hie eyes sparkling at the thought. Napier exploited, a long tramp took the man to Gisborne, where further work was secured on the wharves, loading timber and wool. . Thence to Hamilton, where seven weeks were spent working in a boarding-house, this being finally relinquished for a position in a sawmill at Momaki, The mill closed down, the endless journey was resumed down the main highway from Auckland to New Plymouth and so again to Hawera. MARRIED FOLK SLEEPING OUT. I There was nolhing to suggest falsehood. in either demeanour or

The man hailed from Copenhagen, his eyes were clear, his gaze direct, his movements laboured and deliberate, in keeping with his speech. “How do you manage for food?” he was asked. He replied that in Taranaki on the dairy farms the people were verygood and generally when obliged to answer in the negative- his queries as to work, offered him a “shakedown” and a meal to set him on the way with the sunrise next day. At other places, he said, he was treated with suspicion and given the: “cold shoulder.” “I never ask for anything except work,” said the exsailor, “but you can understand I never refuse voluntary offers.” He found the boys in the dairy factories very kind and the managers invariably supplied him with drinks of milk and pieces of cheese and bread“Do you ever get a lift on the road?” —“Yes. Sometimes I get lifts; some people pull up and ask me, and are very kind.” “Are there many others who have to tramp from place to place?”—“Yes, there are numbers, and I've met some married people on the roads sleeping out. I met a young Scotchman a few weeks ago, who had been out from Scotland only Three weeks. He had come out to look for work and he carried his swag with him. “I could not lift his ewag, it was so heavy,” said the traveller. ‘‘He said he was going to try to reach the South Island coal mines, for he was a miner.” The traveller was last seen “on the road to anywhere” again. Although his prospects seemed far from rosy he laconically suggested he “might strike something.” GENERAL ITEMS. Mr. J. Vinten, when bathing on Sunday at Turuturu Mokai, cut his foot on a piece of broken chinaware. He was admitted to the hospital, where ten stitches were inserted. It will be some days before Mr. Vinten will be able to resume his duties at the dairy laboratory. At a recent meeting of the committee in charge of the A. and P. Association’s gymkhana, It was decided to change the date of the event from March 28 to March 21, so as not to clash with the Stratford jubilee celebrations. The secretary reports that all arrangements are going on satisfactorily and that every body which was invited to eo-operate has’signified its willingness to do so. PERSONAL ITEMS. Mr. J. G. Harcourt, of Wellington, who has been staying with Mr. G. J. Bayley, returned south yesterday. Mr. T. E. James, of Wellington, has been visiting Hawera. Messrs. 8. R. Veitch, A. R. Masters, and E. O’Reilly left by car yesterday morning for Wellington, en route to Nelson, where they will attend the annual conference of the Master Grocers’ Federation as delegates from South Taranaki.