WATER I WATER!

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 15, 23 February 1870, Page 5

WATER I WATER!

To Out Editor of the (Jkohwell Annas. Long live the Queen I Hurrah (or tho now Mayor ! Tho water-race for ever ! Sir, these were the words that rang in my oars as 1 was awaking tho other morning from a dream or vision that had troubled me most of the night. I had turnod in about eleven o’clock on the. night in question, and had slept for about an hour, when it suddenly seemed as if I was swimming in water, and on opening my bewildered eyes, merciful heavens ! there were the Mayor and Councillors, townspeople and water-race proprietors, on deadly battle intent—pitching into one another with sticks, stones, and longhandled shovels—picks and other murderous projectiles flying in the air, women screaming, children crying, and such a row, that it made me think the end of tho world had come. As it seemed plain that I must take one side or the other in the fight, without I wished to serve as a target for both parties, I instantly seized the jaw-bone of an ass, and began “ wiring in” with the rest; and the Mayor’s side, on which I of course had arrayed myself, soon drove the enemy off the field with great loss. I was impatient to know what all the row was about, so I waited till something like order was restored, and then made enquiries as to the causa of the disturbance. I learned that certain parties had been in the habit of stopping tha water-supply, and that while the water had been stopped a fire had taken place, and laid nearly the whole of the town in ashes, and the Mayor and Councillors having become incensed at the dastardly fellows through whose agency the water had bean turned off, had set upon them as I have described. Well, the Council was called together, and a law was passed that never again while Cromwell was a town should it bo without a water-supply, and that all parties found stopping the same should have six months in the Caldwell College, Dunedin. So, three cheers having been given for the Queen, the Mayor, and the water-races, the meeting seemed to disperse. And then I awoke to stern reality, and found an empty water-race, and instead of swimming in the limpid element not a drop of water to be got in the town. 1 do trust, Mr Editor, you will publish this, my second dream, and we shall then see if it will have any effect upon our civic authorities. —-I am, &c,, Drxameh.