Councillor Petherick.

Fair Play, Volume I, Issue 18, 3 March 1894, Page 4

Councillor Petherick.

Mr. James Petherick was born in Camden Town, London, in 1836, and arrived in the barque Aurora in Wellington Harbour on January 22, 1840, with his father, three brothers, and one sister. They landed at Petone Beach amongst the Maoris, so although English born Mr. Petherick can almost be claimed as a New .Zealander, having landed here as a colonist at the early age of four. His father was the first man discharged from the New Zealand Land Company’s work for refusing to work from sunrise to sunset. He had a young family to maintain, the mother having died in England some time before their emigration, and feeling himself badly treated made arrangements to go to Sydney, N.S.W. Just as they were about to embark the captain, in accordance with instructions from Colonel Wakefield, declined to take them, so they had perforce to remain in Maoriland. Shortly afterwards the family removed to JohnsonviUe, carrying all their goods and provisions Maori fashion on their backs over the old Kai Wara Wara hill, now at the back of Mr. Cameron’s residence. Some years after, the family came to Wellington and settled in Willis street. Mr. Petherick’s father died in December, 1885, at the age of 82. In 1853 the subject of our sketch went to Victoria with hi s brother, both of whom were for some time on the gold fields, returning to Wellington in 1855. They afterwards visited Sydney and Queensland before the latter was separated from New South Wales, and became an independent colony, and finally came back to Otago in March, 1860. In 1862 Mr. Petherick married his old playmate at Johnsonville, Miss Sim, and removed to Tirnaru in 1864. While at the latter place he suffered severely from scarlet fever and on becoming convalescent deoided to return to Wellington and settle there. This decision was aoted upon and Mr. Petherick having purchased a

piece of land in Willis street, built a house upon it in which he has resided since February Ist, 1867. During the depressed state of the labour question some years ago when there were so many unemployed, he took a great interest in municipal and political matters, and at the solicitation of a number of his friends became a candidate for a seat as City Councillor. He stood and was returned in September 1883, defeating Mr. Andrew Young by a large majority in Te Aro Ward, and with one interim of about 11 months he has been returned at each election since. In February, 1885, Mr. Petherick was elected a member of the Harbour Board, and on the 12th of February, 1894 was re-elected for the sth time without a break, being the only person the electors’ have returned to the dual position of City Councillor and member of the Harbour Board. In the latter part of 1892 he was appointed a Justice of the Peace of the colony. In 1890 Mr. Petherick lost his wife, and having retired from active business is now’devoting his whole attention to the interests of the ratepayers. He stood on two occasions for the mayoralty but was defeated each time.

You never know whom you may run across on a New Zealand gum field or in a rabbitters’ camp. The only son of Sir John Bennett, the famous watchmaker, whose big clock on Ludgate Hill is so well-known to most Londoners, is trapping and shooting the festive bunny up on a Wairarapa station.

We are pleased to make room for the following humorous suggestion from our Napier correspondent:—

A BABE SHOW. (Showman Loquiter.) “ Ladies and gentlemen, I pray You’ll be so good as step this way ; You’ll all be highly pleased I know With this most rare and wondrous show,

“801 l up ! roll up ! there’s now on view Within, the strangest biped you Have ever seen, or e’er will see. 801 l up ! roll up! admission free!

“ Admission free, but don’t n islake— A small collection we will make. 801 l up ! roll up ! and bring your tin, The biped’s now on view within.”

The crowd rolled up and tumbled in, And soon was all upon the grin, For in an iron cage they saw Exposed to view a limb o’ the law !

A mildish-looking, gentle swell; His name I think was Mister—well, I now forget—but on his breast He bore a placard thus addressed.

“Behold the biped—friends, and scan This strangely constituted man ; This rata avis" (Latin patter) ‘ “ Whom whiskey just affects like water.” ’

The show was vastly patronised, With crowds delighted and surprised ! At each successive crowds’ inspection The showman made a grand collection. A- Stuart*

Mr. Robert White, the well-known phrenologist, whose clever delineations of the character of members of Parliament have aroused so much interest since they appeared in ‘ Fair Play,’ has been lecturing over in Blenheim. He has had large audiences and has made himself very popular.

McNaught, one of the “New Australia” promoters, has been lecturing at Dunedin on Lane’s mad scheme. Seeing there were only about 100 people in the hall, it would seem that the canny Scottish-blooded folic of the Southern city don’t put much faith in the Paraguay paradise and its well meaning, but crack brained prophets. The latest news from “ New Australia” is mostly bad. There are rows and ructions amongst the settlers, and big trouble is in store over the pasturage rights of the natives to the land granted to the party by the Government. If New Zealanders will take our advice, they will go neither to Coolgardie nor New Australia. Maoriland is just about as good a place to live in as can be found now-a-days.

Persia, so we read in an exchange, has only one missionary to two millions of its people. Why don't some of our Wellington street sky-pilots set off for Persia at once ? They might do the Persians some good and we could survivo their departure without any exaggerated amount of fortitude.

“The unco guid, of Dunedin, whore there is more commercial rascality to the square inch than in any other five New Zealand towns put together, laid an information against a carrier for driving a team and waggon with wool on the “ Sawbath.” He wanted to reach town with his wool in time for a sale and was not harming anyone, but some pious J.’sP. fined him 5s and costs. This is so like Dunedin, where hypocrisy grows rank like a foul weed.

The Saturday Revieiv says that Scotland has the worst railway system in the civilised world. “ Unpunctuality, dirt and barbarous discomfort are its prevailing characteristics.” The Saturday Revieio man should travel out to theUTutt races in a filthy cattle truck and then write his impressions of a New Zealand line.

The Gothic bids fair to be a very popular boat. Quite a host of swells, and so-called swells, are going Home in her, amongst others being that very jolly gentleman Colonel Pat Boyle. The name’s playne “ Pat’’ —and not Patrick—and don’t you phrint it Pathrick, me bhoy ” he is reported to have said to a Wellington pressman, who interviewed him shortly after his advent to the colony, and there’s not one bit of side in all his jolly self. The Colonel has only one enemy in the world, and that is the gout ; and “bedad, and faix, and begorra, the Rothorua air claned it out of him entoirely; and by that same token it’s himself that will be spreadin’ the news in Piccadilly and dhrivin’ the gouty on to the colony in hosts !

We hope the Colonel will find a good tap of beer on the Gothic. He’s particular about his beer. When the vice-regal supplies of local liquids had to be laid in, ’twas he that did the “ sampling,” and when he decided upon the two 36-gallon casks of Staples’s xxx to start with he wasn’t showing bad judgment.

The Ardlamont murder case caused an immonse excitement at Home. A Wellingtonian, just returned from London, tells us he was staying at Andeirton's Hotel in Fleet street, a great resort of colonials, and the rush for the evening papers, as they came from the newspaper offices close at hand, was somo* thing surprising. In their anxiety to got at tho nows, ho noticed several people give a sixpence and start off unfolding tho paper as they walked along, totally regardless of the surprising thing for a cockney to do, for the average Londoner is as keen after the bawbees as a mon fra Glasgie I

Tho general opinion about tho Ardlamont oose is, our friend tolls us, that Monson did murdor Young Hombrough, and that Scott, the betting man, was an active accomplice. ScoH, he says, was well-known as a Criterion “lumberer,” a mon who hangs about tho Criterion, Caf<s Monaco and othor West Eudrestaurants and bars, picking up tho mugs “ and taking thorn down ” —a gentlemanly spiolor in fact.

By tho way, tho Monson trial recalls to our mind tho story of a very extraordinary affair which took place in 1808. A Turk named Risk Allah Boy was tried for tho murdor of a young Englishman named Ready. Tho Turk was a worthless adventurer who had married Ready’s mother, and had an in* terest in his doatli. Ready was a wild harom-soarora follow, and'Risk Allah was a very cunning and polished man—in thoso facts alone tlioro is a rosomblanco to tho Ardlamont caso, and Ready was found dcad*in his bod ono morning shot through tho head, and a Belgian jury—tho affair happened at BrußSols—exercised their brains for full 10 days or so, as to whothor it was a caso of murdor or suicide. The ovidenco was very much tho same as was given in tho Ardlamont trial. Eventually tho Turk was acquitted, but tho English nowspapor correspondents in Brussels wrote long descriptive accounts of tho affair, and made it pretty plain that they thought tho Turk had murdered his young English step-son. Risk Allah, who was no fool, read the articles, smelt libel in them, and consequent profits, and pounced down upon tho offending English papers like—well, wo won’t indulge in a Wellingtonian comparison—but uso tho old simile—like a hungry hawk on an innocent dovo. Tho first paper he tackled was tho London Daily Telegraph , out ‘of whose proprietors he got tho tidy littlo sum of jS‘2OOO damages. He had laid actions against othor papers, but thoso wisely squashed the affair by paying a hundred or two into • court. A year or two after, his English wife having died, tho worthy Turk married another Englishwoman, a vory wealthy woman, and then again dropped out of tho public memory.

The Auckland Observer has tho following’in its “ Things we would like to know” column: —“Whothor the druggist now in Auckland, hunting up evidence with a view to a disolution of partnership with his better half, will bo success*, ful.” mo is it?

The Shannon paper, the Manawatu Farmer, and its Otaki contemporary, the West Coast Mail , have been having an amusing squabble. “ Liars,” “ unmitigated ass," “ idiot,” and other choice expressions have been bandied about very freely and the local residents think it will soon be a case of “pistols for two, coffee for four, and slugs in a sawpit,” as Marryfttt’s Midship* man Easy expressed it.