CONSTABULARY DUTY.

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 524, 5 January 1889, Page 3

CONSTABULARY DUTY.

; ' A Policeman's lot is not a happy one ' m any [ ease, and I fancy that the local constable in a ! country district near Auckland wili agree that | his lot is particularly unhappy. He has a grievi ance against the teacher of the district school, and, sad to relate, the usually omnipotent bobby finds himself powerless to avenge himself upon his enemy. The constable is married and has a I son, who- attends the public school. It is not the policeman's fault that the boy, being a trifle dull, failed to secure a certificate in his standard at | the annual examination the othev week. I * ■* * Solomon hhn-elf confessed that it was possible for his progeny to tarn out fools, and it is uo disgrace for .1 humble policeman's son to fall short of intellectual perfection. But the constable in question lacks the wisdom of Solomon, and therefore on Thursday week last, when the result of the examination was read out before the assembled settlers, school sommittee and scholars, and he found that the young hopeful was not included, he bawled out, '.[expected this!' This caused some sensation in the meeting, for the ' family fuel ' (so to speak) between the bobby and dominie was matter of current, gossip, and the insinuation wa-' too marked to pass unnoticed. :,.> * * The chairman thereupon got up and administered a, short rebuke to the local peacej preserver, who was told that he ought to be | ashamed of himself for using language calculated to provoke a breach of the peace. The man in blue subsided a? suddenly as he had got up, and the subset] uenr proceeding* oi' the meeting went on without disturbance. * •* : *"' [ should like to shake that Chairman's hand and tell him how much i appreciate his manly and sit Right forward action. There are in New Zealand too many of those little, village tyrants yclept constables who under the veil of ' constabulary duty ' hold districts is a state _oC terrorism by their petty assumption of authority, and who are most objectionable in their displays 01 favouritism and the reverse. Dressed in ft blue coat and n little bvic-t authority, creatures of this stamp fancy that they can carry all before them ; but we hope there are in every district men like the Chan man veferrod to above, who may be called ' A village I-lanjpfion that, with dauntless brenst, i The- little tyi-anfc of his fields withstood !'