FRETFUL PORCUPINE

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 925, 3 October 1896, Page 11

FRETFUL PORCUPINE

A Quill fop Everyone.

When the Harbour Board, some little time ago, took over the pilot service, great improvements in .the conducting of the same were promised. An exemplification of how theße promises are being fulfilled, and of the prompt and energetic manner in which this branch of the Board's business is now conducted, occurred on Friday last, and is worthy of notice. At 10 o'clock on the morning of that day, c, barque was signalled outside Tiri. Ab the pilot boat was not at her post, there was naturally great excitement amongst the officials directly interested in this department, which became intensified when it was found that the steamer need for this work was on the hard and not available for use. Eventually, the s.h. Waitoa, with the pilot on board, was started away about 11 20, and found, upon reaching the barque, that the p.s. Eagle had, in the meantime, gone ont ,to her and taken her in tow. A second instance occurred that same night . Abont six o'clock, intimation was received that a ship partially disabled was outside Tiri, and being a stranger in distress, would certainly require a pilot. "Unfortunately, in this case, again the pilot boat was not available, nor was the Waitoa, but shortly after eleven, the pilot left Queenstreet wharf in the steam launch Despatch, reaching the ship about one o'clock, fortunately finding her safely at anchor between Bangitotoreef and Tiri. Further comment is unnecessary. There is much talk in the commercial qnartera of Wellington just now about a little sensation that has occur ed in one of the Jeading commercial houses of the city. One of the clerks in the establishment in question has for some time been thought by his friends to be branching oat into expenses that were not within the means of most men of his class. Bnt then the youth talked in lordly style about the generous salary paid him by his employers, and vaunted occasional bonuses in recognition of his youthful service, and so the matter was taken to be sufficiently accounted for. A few weeks ago, however, it came to the knowledge of the heads of the establishment that some moneys which had passed into the hands of the youngster had not been accounted for. Soon a chain of circumstances was discovered which it was chought necessary to call upon him to explain. He was given a night to think the matter over, and next morning, as he was unable to put forward any story that would bear examination, he was sent to the rightabout. Since then be has seen fit to leave the city. As in too many other instances, the peculator carried on hia little game under the cloak of religion, for he was a leading light in one of the Anglican churches of the city, and a right-band man of the parson, and was altogether looked upon as a most exemplary young man, who wouldn't soil his soul with any questionable act. Further, he had long been in the habit of passing on the responsibility for little weekly deficiencies in the cash to a weakminded boy, junior to himself, charging him with having taken the money, ana compelling him to make it good out of his own meagre screw. Which the lad did until a few weeks ago, when he complained to a friend, whose advice caused nim to rebel against his tyrant and so bring about the present exposure. There is another side to the matter, for it turns out that, so far from being in receipt of even a respectable salary, the clerk was paid c beggarly 25s a week, and this though his duties involved the collection of large sums of money on behalf of his employers. Possibly, it was to avoid the exposure of this Bta'te of affairs in their establishment that the firm were so ready to let him go without a prosecution. But when prosperous mercantile houses pay their staff oq this wretched scale, are they not holding out a premium to embezzlement ? It is said that the salaries of the juniors all through the office in question are but little better than this one. And yet the business is looked upon as one of the most flourishing in the colony. Can it be that much of this sort of sweating goes on in New Zealand? For instance, are the banks free from blame ? Is it not a fact that there are men with £20,000 or £30,000 cash in their custody living on a mere pittance? Others, in responsible

We had occasion the other week to refer to the drowning of a young seaman named McLeod from the barque Himalaya at the Quay-street Jetty, and to comment, in passing, on the fact that on the Monday after the accident (which happened on a Saturday night), the Himalaya, didn't display Her flag at half-mast, although the other vessels in port did so. Captain Herbert A. Mann, master of the Himalaya, writes us as follows in explanation: — ' Editor of Observed : Sir, — My attention has been called to an article in your paper concerning the death of one of my sailors, in which it is stated that I refused the deceased the respect of "doffed" colonrs. When I came on deck on the Sunday morning (you remember the accident happened about midnight Saturday) and spotted the flags at half-mast, I sung out to the mate, " Put those flags up and we will half-maßt them when he is buried." Now, anyone hearing the order would know that there was no disrespect shown, and anyone that saw him buried could not truthfully say he was treated as a dog. Up till the time of the publication of your article, my crew and I were on very good, terms, but you have stirred up strife and dissension amongst us, and that sort of thing makes life onehipboard almost unbearable.' We are sorry to hear that there is disaenaion on the Himalaya, but, as will be seen from Captain Mann's letter, our remarks were quite correct. We simply stated facts. If

have been a mild vent for the wrath of the Maori brave. Alas and alack ! how have the times changed f If the ancestors of the present-day Maori could have foreseen that his children's children would be • run in ' by a common paleface policeman for annexing a sack of oysters in what the foolish paheha called a ' close ' Beason, would that ' venerable bogey' ever have been signed at Waitangi ? We trow not. The chief leader writer on a certain Wellington paper went for the police without gloves the other day. And the same evening he was run in for drunkenness and fined 5/-. His next article on police administration is awaited with considerable interest. Even the TJrewera natives have not •scaped the Governmental penchant for legislating on everyone and everything. The Ministry have found it necessary to put through a Bill constituting a reserve of the whole of the Urewera country, or Tuhoe Land, as it is now officially known, comprising some 650,000 acres. The Government says the measure is to protect the Urewera people, so we suppose it will be all right, though, the young aad-energetic Hon&Heke, who ia ' agin ' everything, denounced it as simply designed to entrap Tuhoe natives. The Bill really gives the Tnhoe people the right to govern themselves. This remote

district will ere long be a resort for travellers who wish to see the Maori in hia simplicity, and big oliffs and banging forests and rushing waters galore, . but aa it does not grow anything else but scenery it ia hardly likely that the ' land grabber ' will want to deprive the primitive 'ancient people ' of that. -They. opened a new. bath at Botorna the other day— those Botorua people do seem to wash a terrible lot I—and1 — and the local 'Buster,' the Sot Lakes Chronicle, duly spread itself over the important ' function.' Dr Grinders orated feelingly on the desirability of washing early and often, and then (as per ' Bnster ') : 'Mr Malfroy opened the door of one of the dressing* boxes and led oat a dainty little maidec, blushing rosy red, who sprang into the I bath — with all the speed of a frightened naiad, and deported herself in the water as if it were her natural element. The male j creatnreß then solemnly departed and left the Bacred edifice to Miss Laura Hawkesworth and her attendant nymphs.' Naiads and nymphs ! Joseph Kenny, the Pahiatua.. pnblican, who stands committed for trial for the mutilation of the ear-cropped man, Timothy O'Gorman. was, like many another hotelI keeper, formerly in the police force. The case against him is mainly circumstantial, \ resting on the facts that he was not seen | about his hotel at the hour when the outrage is believed to have been committed; that there had been bitter feeling between him and O'Gorman about a lawsuit in which O'Gorman had got judgment against him for £68 ; that Kenny had told another man a few days before the offence was committed that ' It would be the fun of the world to go down and fire a shot over O'Gorman's house," and had said that ' if O'Gorman had done in some places as he had done to him (Kenny) he would have had his ears cropped; and also that the maimed man swears that he recognised Kenny as the person who was stooping over him when he was aroused by the pain, though he was evidently in a drunken stupor, and though he cannot describe the assailant with any accuracy. In fact, the incident seems to have been the end of a glorious orgie on O'Gorman's part. His mutilation is, of course, life long, for the greater part of both ears seems to have been lopped off. A Ponsonby financial light, v/ho is ambitious to become Mayor of Auckland and rule the municipal finance, was appealed io by the local regatta committee, prior to the last regatta, for a subscription, no doubt in anticipation of the usual guinea donation to the fnnds out of his superbundance of wealth. But the man of money closed his pockets and curtly declined, saying he ' never encouraged anything connected with the sea.' (By the way, has not Ponsonby got a grndge against the sea for bringing him here?) So when, at the last meeting of the local Rowing Clnb in that suburb, the same gentlemen was proposed as a vice-president (with a view to the guinea sub.), the members declined. They weren't on to elect a man who didn't believe in 'encouraging the briny.' One of Cold Water Lecturer laitt'a sturdiest opponents is Mr J. J. Bagnall, a well-to-do settler in the Kangitikei district. He it is who has been maintaining the moderate ticket on platform and in newspaper against the Cold Tea Party for some time past. Mr Bagnall is aretired Birmingham lawyer, who now owns the estate formerly held by the late Mr J. C. Macarthur, M.H.K. Before coming to the Colony he was an active politician in the Midlands — in fact was one of the leading organisers of the Conservative opposition to Mr Joe Chamberlain in Birmingham. The other day the secretary of the Temperance people in Feilding sent Mr Bagnali two tickets for one of Mr Isitt's meetings, '■ where he was promised a dressing down One of these Mr Bagnall returned with & I letter declining to accept what was taken to be a favour from such a source ; for,' said he, 'A boa constrictor salivas his victim before swallowing him. If th« victim escapes the preliminary saliva, he might also escape the swallowing ' The other ticket he keeps, because he says, ' as a collector of curios, I valae it at more than one shilling, and therefore will not use it for the purpose for which it was sent me.'

positions, have languishing sweethearts that have been waiting for years for the chance to marry them, but who cannot yet see any hope of getting the petty £150 a year. That is the mimunum salary on which a bank man is allowed to take to him a wife. If these things are true, and they are very openly stated to be so, there is manifestly something wrong in the commercial and financial systems which bring them about. The temperature of the House is usually maintained at about 70 degrees Fab.., whenever the Assembly is sitting. It ib the special duty of a messenger to watch the thermometer in the chamber in order to see that the required temperature is maintained. They put a new hand on the job the other day, daring the temporary absence of the regular meteorologist, and he was seized with alarm on finding that the thermometer showed nearly 75 degrees. He grabbed the instrument, and carried it oat intjb the air nntil it cooled down, and then replaced it in the chamber, persuaded in his own mind that the temperature was reduced to the required level.

others choose to make ' dissension ' ont of them, we can't help that. Of coarse, we didn't say anything abont the unfortunate sailor being. ' treated as a dog." We are quite sure .that Captain Mann treated the dead seaman as becomes a sailor, but the public and seafaring men outside his own ship very naturally commented on an omission which, though trifling, looked peculiar. It seems rather hard that the sons of the soil should not be allowed to catch the nimble oyster on his native heath when he pleases, but such is the adamantine law — in spite of the Treaty of Waitangi, and fiewi Maniapoto, and King Tawhiao, and all the rest. Two dusky residents of Waihefee Island were fined at the Police Court the other day for having oysters in their possession for the purpose of sale, and their boats were forfeited by the Customs and sold at auction last week. We wonder whether the Maoris thought of how their grandfathers would have treated the man who dared to forfeit their boats and send them to gaol for taking a few oysters up to Auckland for sale. Tomakawking would