ECHOES FROM KAIKORA.

Waipawa Mail, Volume IX, Issue 881, 16 January 1886, Page 3

ECHOES FROM KAIKORA.

The late disastrous fire at Waipawa fully demonstrates the need not only of a trained Fire Brigade, but shews the want of a Fire Police or Salvage Corps as well, as much valuable property was destroyed through the reckless manner in which it was thrown about by the crowd in its efforts to save something from the flames —a very laudable ambition, no doubt—but a very costly one to those whose goods were destroyed by the crowd of irresponsible, untrained volunteers who undertook the removal of furniture and stock from the threatened buildings adjacent to the burning premises. There are a number of fine young men in Waipawa to whom a little training in fire extinction, and property saving would do infinitely more good than their present pastime of exhausting their lungs and excoriating their lips which their brazen instruments of torture is calculated to do. Were the two bands to amalgamate under the one motto “United to Save.” They would earn the thanks of the community, and experience the consciousness of being a real benefit to society, instead of being as they are at present with their “ eternal practices,” and bickerings, an unmitigated nuisance.

The strikes which are now on in different parts of these colonies should prove one of two things, either that the cost of living has advanced, or that the rate of wages have retrograded. The first certainly is not the case, and there is nothing to lead us to suppose the latter. The real reason is that workmen think they are strong enough through tlio agency of their unions to coerce their employers. Strikes are bad things for everybody concerned, especially so for the men themselves, as they lose more by being idle a month than they can make up in a year. Because, if a man earning £lO a month strikes for an increase of 10 per cent in the rate of his pay, and gets it at the end of a month of sol!-imposed idleness, it will take him ten months to earn as much as will pay off the loss of wages caused by striking, and will have incurred the ill-will of his employers for having put them to sudden and unprovided for inconvenience. Whenever a body of men have areal grievance, their case can be better served by a conference between their delegates and those of their employers, than by the clumsy machinery of a strike. Strikes have never done men any real good, and have caused untold misery in the houses of many of them. Men have seen their wives and children wanting food, because they were out on strike and not allowed by the rules of their union to accept the work aud wages the very lives of their families were depending upon. And others have had to contribute from their earnings to help to keep the enforced idle ones from starving. Whenever a question to pay crops up affecting a body of inn, they should exhaust every other method of bringing employers to their terms before having recourse to a strike, as the latter is neither more nor less than an open declaration of hostilities between the two parties, and is sure toihe followed up by injury and loss to tlie weakest of them. It pays employers to act kindly and considerably to their employers, and it is equally profitable for the latter to encourage this good feeling by every legitimate means w illustrative of due appreciation 0? the facilities afforded by the post office for the transmission of other than correspondence, pure and simple, a good story comes from a sister colony. A young postmaster of a village post office was hard at work, when a gentle tap was heard upon the slide, and in looked a bashful maiden of 10 or thereabouts with a money order which she desired to cash. She handed it to the official with a bashful smile, who, after closely examining it handed her the money it called for. At the same time lie asked her if she had read what was written on the margin of the order. “ No, I have not, she replied, for I can’t make it out.” “ Well you please read it for me?” The young postmaster read as follows, “ I send you £3 and a dozen kisses.” Glancing at the bashful girl he said. “Now I have paid you the money and I suppose you wan’t tlte kisses,” “ Yes” she said, “ if he has sent me any kisses I want them too.” It is hardly necessary to say that the balance of the order was promptly paid, and in a scientifice manner at that, and eminently satisfactorj' to the country maiden, for she went from the office smacking her lips, as if there was a taste upon them she had never encountered before. Alter she arrived home she remarked to her maternal parent : “ Eh, mother, but this post-office system of ours is a great thing, developing more and more every year, and each new feature seemed to be the best. Jemmy sent me a dozen kisses along with the money-order, and the post-master gave me twenty. It the special delivery system all hollow.' At Timaru, the worthy Mr'Turnbull, M.U.R., addressed a school of young ladies, tlie gravamen of his discourse being an earnest advice to tlie young ladies not to be too fine, not to confine themselves to the drawing-room and the piano, the fine crotchet work, and creptoleen, and so on. but to take an earnest part in the common work of the household. He pointed out that Rebecca, although a young lady of rank and wealth, did not stay indoors twanging the timbrel, or whatever musical instrument was in fashion in Mesopotamia, but was in the habit of going to the well to draw the

water wanted for the household. On being civilly requested, she gave a traveller a drink, and also performed the menial and laborious office of drawing water for the camels. A young lady of Timaru, however, writes thus : — 4 ‘ I would respectfully remind our worthy M.H.R. that there are 500 girls in this town who would willingly draw water for camels, or any other animals, if they could make sure of getting an Isaac at the well, and get up quite as early in the morning as Rebecca did. We consider that young lady was very highly favored in having a husband provided for her. In these days we have to use the best means at our command to attract, and then fail to get husbands. The Wellington people seem to have more faith in the beneficence of Providence than do the inhabitants of Hawke’s Bay. Prayers for rain were offered in the churches of the Empire city, and it came. Perhaps Captain Edwin saw a “ cloud the size of a man’s hand,” and gave the clergy the tip ; in any case, the prayers were answered. It would be a grand thing if our local clergy were to interest themselves a little more in mundane affairs, and address an effectual petition to the proper quarter for the long wanted diluent, otherwise we shall be compelled to coax the clouds that so persislently fly over this district, carrying away their watery treasures to the sea, augmenting its volume with what would be health and life to us—to discharge a portion of their contents by tree planting. How rainfall is influenced by aborescenee is too well known to need recapitulation. But the fable of the carter praying to Hercules to help him when the wheel of his cart stuck in the bog, and the reply of the god, telling the devotee to put his shoulder to the wheel and help himself, applies to ourselves. Let plantations be extended upon our naked plains, and a marked increase in t.lio rainfall will be the result. Echo.