WELLINGTON, AND WELLINGTON PEOPLE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 9191, 19 September 1891, Page 2

WELLINGTON, AND WELLINGTON PEOPLE.

No.I— ABOUT THINGS IN GENERAL. To one barely yet convalescent after a twenty-five hours' troubled sojourn on board tho fast and favorite Union Company's steamboat which plies every week direct from Manukau to Wellington, and landed subsequently amid the varied delight^, alike to the sense of smell and vision, of this Elysian capita l , it is by no means an easy task to write in a pleasant, far less frolicsome, strain. In the first place, whilst under the vivid impression of the horrors of rising at tho unearthly hour of half past four a.m. in order to catch tho early, horribly early, train to the breakwater, on tho morning of leaving New Plymouth, may your correspondent venture to inquire " the reason why " passengers by the steamer in question are thus remorselessly routed out of their warm beds, at this inclement season of the year especially, and ruthlessly hurried on board no less than three mortal hours before tho Baid steamer reluctantly sets sail at length ? I am confident the genial and always most obliging local agent of tho Company will do his " level best " — to uso, I believe, the favorite slang of our M.H R. — to prevent, ri£ possible, such an untoward mishap to shivering and half -famished travellers in future. To add to tho not unnatural exasperation, passengers had to embark, after half an hour's delay on the breakwater, in the apparently once more inevitable surf boat, and bo rowed out a third of a mile, to where their noblo craft was lying at anchor. One of the said passengers — who had not, like your correspondent, tho excuse of a harbour rate demand note in his very pocket — was overheard to exclaim : " Why ! this sort of thing is worse than tho old surf boat days !" To add, Sir, insult to injury, hardly had one made tho customary sal uto to the com mander, and casually remarked that cattle were now selling in our magnificent dis trict at a marvellous advance on prices received for many years past, than the canny Scotchman sarcastically observed that he wished the Harbour Board would " manage to sell some of that sand." Was it not shockingly rude ? But really to leave the railway station at New Plymouth at a quarter before six on tho morning of one day, and apart from a few hours of a somewhat rough sea and a stiff "southeaster " in the Straits, to be unable to quit the Wellington wharf with bagand baggage no sooner than half-past eight on the morning of the next day, is surely a matter which seems to need remedying in some way or other, if the Union Company are to maintain their hitherto high character for promoting the public comfort and convenience. The very first object which met the sight on driving through the well erected barriers at the entrance to tbo wharf was at leaßt fifty or sixty of " the unemployed," waiting, I was told, for a job to turn up ! On asking why, at any rate the able-bodied, who certainly composed the bulk of these unfortunates, did not go up the country, where, as at Palmerston and Stratford, labour was plentiful and labourers scarce, I was ingenuously assured that there was quite a sufficient reason: "They object to leave the city." No wonder that the very same day, at the meeting of the Charitable Aid Society in this city, the Chairman declared the increasing demand upon it for the relief of destitution to be so serious as to necessitate a largely increased expenditure, unless " with tho arrival of spring " matters mended ! Meanwhile, business at Wellington appears extremely quiet, except, indeed, the business of rattling through tho Payment of Members Bill by tho RabbloBabbledom gathered in that wondrous palace ycleped " Tho House of Assembly," in which the fame of Taranaki's own M.H.R. is already spread throughout the length and breadth of this Seat of Empire and City of Destructors on Port Nicholson. Egmont. September 17th, 1891.