WAYSIDE NOTES.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2670, 7 September 1871, Page 2

WAYSIDE NOTES.

(By our own special rrpprtrr, out on a, holiday, ) Of course you will have thought your “special” had been again 100 heavily indulging in strong waters. His tendency in this way you well know—and no other explanation would probably occur for hi® pro? traded silence. But when in the midst of his long dissertations on Cargill Town—“ The City of the Plain”—a double interruption occurred : a telegram from you, telling me to go to Orepuki, and a red-faced, redtskocked Hielandwan’s entrance, to know from your servant the meaning of the motto nemo rut impune lace**H. I was utterly disgusted with you in sending me to Orepuki. You knew not what you were doing, and forgot that a merciful man “should be merciful te his beast” and tben to add additional weight to my indignation, this hirsute Scot came and demanded the meaning of a motto a schoolboy should know. I finished my glass of whiskey hot, and looked tin tnati full in the face. Of course he rang the

bell and ordered a replenisher. “ Your name is Mc’Kay” said 1. “It is” said he. “ Then ask your cousin,” quoth 1, “whether this has not been your family motto from time prior to that when Deucalion left the \rk.” “I’ve won my bet,” quoth shockhaired Celt. “ Waiter, bring in two bottles of No. 2, and tell Jock to come inside.” Of course I had seen my man before, knew what to say, and thus retaliate on a brother who once accused me of “ impudence” and “ ignorance.” I had to get brandy and soda on the morrow, and started for Oropuki. Keren on ft o, nos nionions. In this city of magnificent distances only two streets arc metalled —one leading north and south, the other east and west; the principal hotels, though built of wood, will suffice for the wants of the next, not present generation ; the poor Post Office looks like a dilapidated way-side accommodation house ; the Government Buildings, like a deserted goldfields store, bn It under pressure of business, neglected, detached, half-empty, -rotting away ; the Hospital, like a Methodist chapel of an early date; the Police establishment, like the Immigration Barracks across Princes Bridge, Melbourne, in 1853 ; the chapels and churches, severely Puritan, outside and in; the railway station, like that of Swindon—in miniature—save possessing no accommodation for men or women of any kind ; ignoring six water closets that are broken down , and locked up, with rolling stock rotting away for want of care or money, nod useless machinery cumbering the ground in every direction ; the inhabitants of the town, jovial, but anxious-waiting and hoping for another loan—and praying like Micawber of yore, for something to turn up. No acclimatisation grounds; no museum ; no water supply; no system or means of sewerage yet hath “ The City of the Plain.” There are two newspapers published in the municipality. The Times and The News. The former half supports the policy of the General Government, and has devoted itself to a subject of considerable importance, i.e., the perfecting of the English language by the coinage of new words. For my park, I would give any fellow that introduced a new word in our already too copious vocabulary, six months in gaol. I made it a point some years since to find out the meaning of all those etymologic phenomena, but have given over in despair. The Times supports Reid and elodocracy, and in so doing has received a portion of the mantle of scurrility and personal invective the Independent some timt since discarded—but which was taken up and darned and mended, and since worn by the Evening Post. Who approved of the new tariff to be levied on the Bluff and Winton Railway beside the manager ? It is considered that from 12,000 to 13,000 bales of wool next shearing will arrive at Winton from the districts of the Lakes. In summer, wool is oarted from Kingston to Winton for sixty shillings per ton dead weight —a distance of seventy-two miles. Then the railway is supposed to carry it to the Bluff—a distance of forty miles for forty shillings p?r ton. The veriest ass in the Colony will at a glance see that the charge will cause all the wool to go down by dray, and tbo revenue of the railway be defrauded of its carriage by the incapacity of the “approvers” of the tariff. *WliO did ** approve this railway monstrostsity? Flax is to go at half-price—like a child under twelve years of age. Yet the child occupies as much room as the follgyown man, I wonder how it would answer to drive all our squatters and their herds into the sea. I cannot bather to discuss the inequality and absurdity of the whole tariff ; the single illustration of wool I have noticed rpill suffice to show how well justice has been emsidered and expediency followed I’d as lief carry a watch to a tinker to mend, as ask advice or counsel from such “approvers.” In wanderings nightly you sometimes hear amusing colloquies, and gleam important observations. Is it true that every employe, as I have heard, on the railway, has had his salary reduced, save the general manager? Some have suffered to the tunc of 17 percent. per diem. Why should the top of the tree escape when the branches are lopped ? Thus argued a night prowler. Is it true that a large amount of money has been voted for the repair and maintenance of the rolling stock on the line, and placed for disbursement in the hands of the manager to do as he deems best, giving to whom he listcth, instead of work being done by contract ? Thus spoke one in open day. There being no roads in Southland has caused, 1 suppose, the abolition of the sinecure of Road Engineer. ’Tis bettor, evidently, to be a tinker’s donkey than a servant of a Provincial Government. There are two other heads of departments left —a Chief Surveyor (called an Inspector) and a Commissioner of Crown Lands. If they would only sell all their land, wc presume these gentlemen’s services could be dispensed with. Odd, ain’t it—two land laws in one Province ? Will this, like the brook, “go on for ever ” ? Why don’t yon take up the land question, George, and make capital of it? Don’t you think the extended boundary ought to be granted them ? Adieu, Invercargill!