WINDY WHISPERS WAFTED FROM WELLINGTON.

Observer, Volume X, Issue 603, 24 January 1891, Page 18

WINDY WHISPERS WAFTED FROM WELLINGTON.

(Bx Sainana- Rail.)

Dearly beloved reader, didst thou ever read • Looking Backward ?' If not, try it on with my name and we are sworn friends -belay me if we ain't. Somepeople might think I'm a girl— not me. . Well, I'm going to tell you all about Wellington, what struck me as a stranger coming to a very strange land. What struck me the most ? Why, the girls I Real smashers, I assure you. I've had opportunity to judge the other three bigcentres of the colony, but give me Wellington as our beauty producing centre. Whether it is the superabundance of wind, or the fact of Parliament; being located here, I know not ; but they are real darlings. I am going to tell you about the town now. It is built at the foot of 150 hills, and it is quite as illy as it is steep. That is to say, the place ain't as pure as it should be. There is only one street in. the city, and even it is a fraud, because it runs under several aliases. Sometimes it is dubbed the Quay, next time it is called Willis-street, then Manners- street, and it finally ends its business career by beingstyled Cuba-street. I am here for the holidays, and such a vacation it is ! Oh, Jeewhillikins I You talk about de wedderl How it blew Christmas Day ; Boxing Day 1680 times better and New Year's Day twice as many worse. All day there wasn't enough sun to see a fellow who had the price of a pint, of Wellington tangle-foot ! Pass over the holidays, and just imagine yourself bound up in a coil of barbed wire, and if you can do so you have a slight glimpse of the glorious enjoyment of how we spent our holidays. And now what struck me the least? Why, the men. There's no mistake, the poor little whipper-snapper Wellingtonian lords of the soil are mighty poor specimens of either Apollo or Hercules. The Artillery and A.C. chaps get all the crumbs that fall from the rich men's tables, and there's some fine-looking fellows in the foorce, but they are fearfully proud in their plumes, and when it's Sarah Harm's Sunday out the pair look to lovely for to watch. And the barmaids — my constituents — how amiable they are I But I don't put much faith in the publicans — they don't give any lunch here. Pints are 4d, ten to a drunk. "Pines are never less than 5s after being let off with a caution. Police are numerous — too much so, the amateur coppers (alias young fellows passing as ' acting-constables ') are always on the alert to protect the peace and their own billets. The other night as I wandered round I went into a pub. in Manners Btreet. Here, as I put away a pint, I heard three persons talking. What were they talking about ? The Observer. Yes, those good young men were prompting my dearly beloved feminine friend to put something in the paper about their absent comrades,, and they were all in the A. 0. Department. Now that was mean. Why didn't they write themselves ? Little did they think that one of the Observer sentinels heard and saw all that occurred. I must close as the mail is going out, but will write again next week.