MEETING RESPECTING THE ELECTION OF MAYOR.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 62, 18 December 1871, Page 3

MEETING RESPECTING THE ELECTION OF MAYOR.

AN EXTRAORDINARY SCENE. (from our own correspondent). The meeting announced to be held on Saturday, on the square next the Thistle Hotel, Queen-street, to consider the appointment or a Mayor for the ensuing year, was a complete failure, and resulted in one of the most extraordinary and disgraceful scenes ever witnessed in Auckland. At six o’clock, the hour appointed for the meeting, four express carts were drawn np in a half square, at the back of the open space. Upon the centre two, small tables and chairs were placed, and the other express vans were also furnished with chairs, for the accommodation of speakers. When the time had arrived for opening the meeting, Air George Staines emerged from the Thistle Hotel. George was well got up in a new white hat. a white vest, and necktie of the same spotless colour. He mounted the centre expiess van. whip the reporters took possession of the other. Mr Olpheit, a member of the old City Hoard, got up and seated himself next Staines. There was a moderately large crowd, including the usual proportion of rouglts and a good many Jews. Three or four of the latter, including Mr Simon. Lipst : m*. took a position immediately beneath Staines's cart —Staines then arose to address the meeting, and it was at once evident that he was in that delightful state of mind derived from a liberal indulgence in water. He opened fire in a way that strongly reminded me of some of in's eloquent orations in the old City Hoard. Were the ratepayers, lie said, to be robbed out of their hard and honestlv

earned money, to pay £SOO a year to a person because he had got n long pocket and nothing to put in it? How had the present Mayor got into his position? Had lie not accepted os a da}', Ihe pay of a common scavenger, and then got the Councillors to raise his salary to £2 10s a week, and was continually agitating for increased pay out of funds that ought to he spent upon making roads and gutters. Had not he (George Staines) carried an Act in the Provincial Council to empower the City Board to abolish payment to a chairman, and had they not got an honourable gentleman to accept of that post without emolument ? Could they not do so in the case, of the Mayor ? Were there not many honourable citizens who would be glad of the distinction—men who had plenty of money, and did not desire the position as a means of livelihood ? As for the present Mayor, for his part he might be Mayor (mare) or he might he donkey, but with George Staines’s consent lie never should he paid. —Mr Lipstine and other fellow-country-men beneath the waggon suggested to Staines to mind the touching incident in his life—the parting with his old uncle. — “ Why,” said Staines, “ do they upbraid me because I had an old uncle and loved him. Has that man Moses got an uncle who would fall upon his neck ? I pay my 20s in the pound, and I don’t want people to poison themselves to keep me out of Court." lie then commenced a general attack on the Jewish fraternity, treating them to a liberal spattering of Billingsgate. There was an immense crowd present at this time, and some one handed Staines up a glass of cold brandy and water, which he put out of sight in intervals of a stirring address, the crowd throughout cheering him lustily. —“ Go it Staines,” “ Give it them, George,” “ You’re the Man of the People,” and similar expressions being heard from all quarters. He related how he was a poor orphan and worked for 2s a week, but now ho was a man of property, earned by his industry and perseverance. But lie didn’t mind being an orphan,—not he ; and there were plenty there who had been to their uncle’s oftener than lie had. During the whole of his address a lively cross-fire was carried on between himself and the Jews below, one of them having made some reference to hawking plates. Staines extinguished him by asking whether that same individual had not bought plates at liis shop, and hawked them at lOd a dozen. This drew forth the remark that Staines was a blackguard. “Am I a blackguard?” said Staines. “I appeal to the public whether I am a blackguard. The people who elected me ?” General cries of “ No, you’re all right, Staines.” One man who occupied a prominent position on one of the vans had a mutton ham, which he waved wildly round his head, as an expression of his entire satisfaction with Mr Staines’s past conduct, and then relapsed into a recumbent attitude, using the mutton Lain as a banjo. Staines called on the public to elect a chairman, and Olphert, who Had, during Hie oration, hung his head somewhat confusedly, now disappeared over the side of the van. Some one now handed Staines up a quart pot of beer, his brandy being done, and this he placed on the table before him. No one volunteering to come forward and preside, a dissipated looking individual, who is known as a runner of evening papers, was pushed forward by the crowd, and mounted the part to assume Hie office. He begged of the crowd to keep order and listen to what Mr Staines had to say. The express-man gave liis horse a cut, and the sudden move brought- the new chairman quickly down to liis ordinary standing level.—Staines again addressed the meeting, which was chaffing him on all sides. Every now and again lie would bury liis nose in the pewter, emerging wonderfully refreshed. The police ultimately threatened to arrest him, and the crowd, which had npw become immense, dispersed, terminating an exhibition of which the foregoing account gives lmt a faint idea, the most disgraceful in the whole history of Auckland’s political gatherings.