Old Grumble on Destiny

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 131, 21 April 1885, Page 2

Old Grumble on Destiny

Grumble has been silent — silent, while transactions hare taken place where his voice should have been i heard, and perhaps many hare hoped 1 that they had heard the last of him — | did you say a forlorn hope, Mrs G. t — and that he was lying quietly inurned in Westminster Abbey with "Rtqitincat in pace " for his epitaph. But he does not " rest in peace," nor has he done , so ; quite the reverse, for during the hist six months he has not had a .wink of sleep. Then I made a great waste of snores, did I, Mre G. ? Well; perhaps I have, although if the soft music of them lulled you to sleep,, I di^Lnot snore in vain, for you slept ; while: I was destined to be in misery. Yes, I am a child of destiny! since yoo choose so contempuously to call me such, jcvtm though my sixe and age debair i^ from competing at a baby show,, and' let me tell you that this same destiny which "shapes our ends" shapw other creatures ends also. In iomv it shapes one end, in some the other. : How about the guinea pig, you isk ? That bears me out, . Mrs Grumble, v ln my assertion that "the guinea, psg was the last animal created/ and that when the creature was made there was no material left for destiny to shape its end with, consequently the guinea pig has no destiny; but H is to the manner it shapes one end of thejsosquitos that Grumble owes his dieeoin* fort, and the "out of doors" world has not heard of him lor the vicious myriads drove him from hia desk, and' their thousand bites kept him nightly as lively as a Scotch fiddle. Biit the mosquito* are now gone, and Grumble; can write again. But what is were in the paper you- see, Mrs Grumble, that makes you gape like a henwitbl the croup? Oh! a telegram, is it, from the Agent-General, stating it behoved New Zealand to hasten thecompletion of her defence preparatioas. It would have been mttre sensible 'off ! him to have sent word that it behoved them to hasten the completion of the bridge at Awahuri, jo thai .'people could cross the river without "risk t*> themselves and certainty of damage to their conveyances, It is tb^ months since the contract was let and the time expired oh the 20th instant, i Three months of glorious weather. with nothing to prevent the work from progressing, and yet the bridge^ ia. not half finished., You ask the reason, Mrs G. ? Well, I don't mind enlightening you. It is because the contractor, instead of honestly setting about the work, fishes for some one to sub-let it to, who in his turri/ merely takes it as an opportunity, of disposing of his timber, and again; the thing is sub-let, until six weeks had transpired before a stone was turned: 3*ae ceilsequence is that the. timehas; elapsed, and still there is no bridge. . Now, shall the public suffer througfe A* cupidity of such men ?■ There m^rn penal clause in the contract of £B per day. Will the Council 'mulSt it? Grumble will wait and see. If they do not— if they sacrifice the public for the benefit of the rontr«jtors^» ihey do not act strictly ■ to, tlieJLe^terrrthea their destiny as County Councillors shall have as sharp wending «* Via mosquito's! ' = ■-■■ ■'■ T ■ ■ •-: - ,- . Olp QaintßU^ ■