A MAN NAMED HAMER.

Observer, Volume XI, Issue 750, 13 May 1893, Page 12

A MAN NAMED HAMER.

There is sometimes much in a name , So a tourist who arrived in Wellington the other day found. His name was Hamer. He was full up of the importance of Britons in general, and British tourists in particular. He believed they owned the earth. He put up at a leading hostel. Mr T. Hamer, the Premier's private secretary, put up at the same hotel. Ministers (especially the Premier) are persons to whom night and day are one, who seldom sleep, and hardly ever eat — except at banquets. Private secretaries are people who try to do these things, and sometimes succeed. At other times their lives are ordered as the lives of Ministers. At 4 a.m last Sunday, the Minister of Public Works sent for Mr Hamer, private secretary. An energetic hotel employ^ proceeded to the room of Mr Hamer, tourist, and thundered thereon an awakening peal. Mr Hamer, tourist, leapt from his warm bed under the impression that the bouse was on fire, found it was not, and retired to rest once more. He had scarcely slept before another messenger came over, was directed to his room, rushed up, knocked, yelled ' Mr Seddon says to hurry up,' and fled as he heard the infuriated inmate rushing for the door. Once more the unfortunate tourist composed himself to sleep, but presently the Minister, chafing under the delay, sent still another messenger, who, also directed to the room of Mr ' Hamer,' roused the now maddened tourist a third time, and intimated that Mr Seddon said he had to wait there till he got him out of bed. . After standing the seige for a while, the British subject burst upon his tormentor and demanded in sulphurous language to know who this Mr Seddon was, and when he was told that he was the Acting-Premier, and insisted on his coming over at once, he swore by the Britannia that rules the waves, and all his other gods that all the Premiers in this infernal country would not move him, and that they would have to call out their adjective troops" if they wanted to quell him, and if he wasn't let alone at once he would telegraph to Mr Gladstone and bring the British Government down on them. Then there were mutual explanations, and it was discovered that the original Harcer was peacefully enjoying the repose of which his namesake had been robbed ; but Mr Hamer, tourist, packed up his portmanteau and left the country by the next boat, and his Btory of the way British subjects are opposed by Colonial Ministers will make exciting reading for his friends. — Post.