NOTES BY PEN

Western Star, Issue 1912, 12 May 1894, Page 2

NOTES BY PEN

Why is the Hon. B. J. Soldon like Dicken’a Oliver Twist ? Because he wants some more (Samoa). Now, Oliver did not get the more soup he asked for, and as I think we have quite enough to do to look after ourselves, I hope our colony wont get Samoa tacked on to it.

I read the other day of a 'Victorian farmer who got a loan on son p he never owned thev only browsed on iancillary green fields in his own frano-permeated mind. But just fancy a loan company giving an advance on sheep they had never se n. It is just a type of how business was done in Melbourne, and we can only wonder that the financial tornado did net end in a financial earthquake swallowing up every penny and reputation in the colony.

But New Zealand has not been free from the reckless practice of advancing on fictitious values, and it is this which has t< a large extent produced such havoc among the various lending establishments. I have even known of insurance companies taking a risk on house and furniture that they have never seen. No wonder people over insure, and then put in claims. As much to encourage honesty among the people as to protect themselves, companies should be exacting in their examination of securities.

I never did have much faith in companies, and the recent revelations in connection with the N. Z. Loan and Mercantile Agency Coy. in Loudon have set mo dead against them until more rigorous laws for their control and protection of shareholders are framed. Many companies know that if they pay dividends the public will have faith in them : that is reckoned th« criterion of success. But it would be well for the unsuspecting public to know that a company may be going all to pot, and still nay dividends. For corroboration of this read the following extract : The Wellington Industrial an J Provident Co-operative Society is in liquidation and during the hearing of a case against it the Magistrate, Mr Marlin, observed that the dividends appeared to have been paid out tf capita!, while the system of bo «k-keeping was the moat unique within his experience.

Wellington, the Empire City, the rendezvous of colonial aristocracy, the town of gubernatorial highfalutin, style, pomp, pageant, and display ; the seat of legislative wisdom, the end-all and be-all of political aspirants, is, sad to say, in a very bad way. The unemployed have swarmed into it like hungry locusts, ready to devour all before them. Like Coxey’s army at Washington, they want individual assistance, and I hope, poor fellows, that they will get it. Nobody knows what it is to be out of work, hopeless, pennile-'S, friendless, ad.ift on the ocean of industry, f.ut those who have gone through its hard discipline. No one knows what it is to get up in the morning, go down the street and find nothing to do but the out-of-work. Busy man run about, and seem to say “ Get out of my way.” You frequent the street until the policeman begins to eye you as if you were a suspicious character. You begin to feel a guilty mortal, guilty of the great crime of being out of work! Sick of street, sick of being snubbed and refused work, you stay at homo, and mope, getting thin and ill. You can find plenty of Job’s comforters, but real friends are few. When you do get a job, why, it is like as if you had put your feet 5u heaven. Hence, for the genuine unemployed I have deep sympathy, and that there are these in the colony 1 do not for one moment doubt, because I have met them even in the Western District. They don’t kick up a noise, but bear their lot with a patience Job-like,

But there is another class who have been swarming into this colony of late—a beersoaked, lazy, immoral set who turn their attention to minding othere people’s property without being asked. They are noisy, and make frequent demands. They associate with the genuine unemployed, and they are such adepts at hypocrisy that they succeed in persuading the authorities very often that they are cases upon whom the Government -hould take pity. Of late burglaries have been frequent in all the loading towns, and in Wellington hundreds of those loafers have put in an appearance. It was proposed to erect shelter sheds for them, and the Gear Meat Co. offered free soup, but Mr Treagear, of the Labour Bureau, told the would-be philanthropists plainly that it would be misspent charity. These loafers should be made to work before they get a crust. The divine dictum is that by the sweat of the brow a man shall eat his bread.

Apropos of the loafer class, who do so much to injure the cause of the real out-of-work, I cull the following ftom the Bruce Herald. It took place in Bruce: —A fellow came along and besought something to eat upon the usual plea of no work to do. The appeal met with a kindly response and then when he had filled himself full, his kind entertainer suggested he should make some return, and pointing to a tree that had recently been felled, proposed a little cutting of the branches for firewood. The ‘ poor ’ tramp eyed the tree askant, took up the axe, made a step or to towards the fallen branches and then putting down the implement very carefully, declined with the excuse that he “ was not used to that kind of work.” He made himself scarce, of course. Moral: —Make your man chop wood first and feed him afterwards.

The peculiar methods adopted by some men to get out of the world would be laughable were the nature of the deed not so repugnant to us. I have just chanced on the description of one which for inventiveness and originality takes the cake. This singular individual, named MTndoe, lived at North Carlton, Melbourne, and shuffled off thus : He placed a ladder against the end of the chimney outside the house, and having tied a bit of wire round his neck, and attached it to the chimney, he swung himself off the ladder. The wire broke and he fell to the ground. He was found soon after alive, but died before the arrival of a medical man.

I do not know whether it is the want of moral instruction in our State schools or not, but certain it is that a great number of boys who come out of our free, compulsory, and unrivalled educational mills have very little regard for the rights of others. I have obea thought that a good dose of the penalties of the law instilled into young minds would be more beneficial than stewing up the hideous descriptions of the intrigues of utterly disreputable and bloodthirsty kings and qu. ens. [ may be wrong but that is my opinion. To take one case from a number I know of to show the destructive nature of boys, and hi? boys at that; A landlord left his house for a time. Yory soon the windows were broken, then the trees in the garden were torn up by the roots, the fences were destroyed, and had it not been ihat the owner arrived in time, the honse would have mysteriously disappeared, I recollect once seeing a picture representing a wheat field in which the grain was just two inches up. Seated on a fence were two locusts one of which was supposed to be singing “In this Wheat By-and bye.” So with the hoys. Let it bo known that a mwuhh is to bo vacated, and you will see the u 1 china roosting on the fence thinking of the goad time coming when, like Goths and Yandals, (hey would be able to play old •lurry window, trees, and fences. The pietn> > w.nld bo much improved if I could out *■ policeman appear in the dis-

tant? , >: i tie eyes of these boys the policem ‘i nonentity,