LIFE IN ’FRISCO.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16330, 20 January 1921, Page 7

LIFE IN ’FRISCO.

AN AMUSING LETTER

EX-CHIEF DETECTIVE HERBERT.

An interesting and amusing commentary on the States has been received I by a trie-nd of Mr Herbert (late chief detective in Dunedin and in | Christchurch), who has been in ’Frisco 1 for a considerable time, j The police system here, he says, j would make a dog faugh, and the courts! and the judges! 1 If I start talking about them 1 shall never stop. They all chew—-tobacco. I seriously think I am the only man in ’Frisco that lias nor eternally got a quid of tobacco in his mouth. Spittoons everywhere. There’s one. in our bedroom. I’ll spit in the darned thing one of those days- and then I’ll be a full-blown Yank—loo per cent. American, they call it.

This great country 15 de jure dry, but de facto wetter chan a thousand shags; 2s for a liqueur glassful of the rottenest tiling that, ever was called whisky. They arc arresting whisky distillers by the score, and there are hundreds still making it. Barrels of I water have been sold for whisky several

j If the papers cannot get: a regular j supply of murders, suicides °and j “ hold-ups ” they manufacture them, j Mo have just experienced a Presiden--1 tial election, and. would you believe it, they have a lot to learn from us in j posting election returns. It was abso- ! lutely rotten; no excitement, no enthusiasm. Politics is a profession. These darned Y r anks are just big kids. T am not surprised that You Nigh ted ” States is a happy hunting ground for bunco (confidence) men. Our average standard of intelligence is away out in front. They can't reason. If you say anything against their country they reply: ‘if you don’t like our country, why don’t, vou leave if f” They am everlastingly telling me that tho Kanstitooshun (Constitution) is the best in the world, and I hurt them by replying: “If it is, then your Administration is tho worst thing on earth,*’ and so it is. They have all sorts of flowers, here all the year round, and yet no house i has a garden. They arc farmed and sold here as we sell ” spuds.” Every Sunday three or four are killed and j half a do?.en mangled in automobile accidents. • Every cadger has one.

Some enterprising and patriotic New Zealander should stir up Mr Massey to do something to combat the ignorance of these Californian omadhauns concerning New Zealand. We have a. “ Now Zealand Government Agent.” but no one knows anything about him. T found trim by accident, as T found most of -he thieves that I arrested in my day. Hi l2 agency is only a side lino, for which he lias only a mere nominal screw. We think in New Zealand that the world is watching us for a lead in freak or advanced legislation. I am sure this is quite wrong. It would bo nearer correct to say the world (California, anyhow) hardly knows of our existence, and those who know laugh sarcastically at our insignificance. God has been too ! good to these darned Yanks. He gave them the most beautiful country on earth end they think, or appear to think, they created it for themselves. We have the best of them in any way viz., in a day’s travel they have the advantage of experiencing _ several kinds of climate. While m New Zealand we get the same result by staying ;in one place. ’Hie climate is simply J superb, and my improved health must : ho due either to that or the great ! American constitution—ppell it with a K.

I The police hero were getting only A. 60 dollars a day. and they got a. rise [of one dollar 011 at last election. They i had to canvass the city with petitions to ! have the question of their riso put on j the ballot paper, and they won out easily- The judges were down on the | ballot paper too. but they were beaten, thank God! There were forty-eight questions on the paper, mostly for more wages. We have never less than four or five murderers awaiting trial. Tt takes three days sometimes to swear in a jury. They first try the jury, then the prisoner. Juries are of men and women.