Our Wellington Watchman

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 129, 7 May 1887, Page 2

Our Wellington Watchman

- Wellinoton, May 4. The wreck of the "WaitaM" adds another to the~/tong list of attempts made by our coaling skippers to dis- , -cover, nor-west passages, overland ;. routes', and; the precise position of New Sealand reefs and ..shoals, by touch.: No lives have, fortunately, been expended- in this -latesfer^Edca* graphical enterprise because, mimbite dictu, the " Waitaki" managed- to ja»herself on one soft' spot in long leagues'. '*. of cqast. JEadLsJie strpcX r tenJf%th.gpi* *? on either side, her, onjy_ record jwould a have been a* little floating • matfcljwood, ■■: and a few shark-torn corpsefeU:. J& m& the old old story. The captain took^ a departure from Castle Point at dusk on his ' " usual course,". . though: Jjie w wind was fresh from S.E., and, natural sequence, a strong .curr^ tJJ was setting ashore. This usual course'; *- s — nathless the pitch black night and* inshore current— was maintained until! the log registered (58 miles, "Vhiptt. . ought to have brought the ship'opjjoV . site Cape falli&er;.'' • Soon afteiv Ibidi night the loom of tne land which was taken to be the Cape, was distinguished nearly due west, (i.e., presumably, . right ahead; and close, because the night was : ; blaek),.but in ordertotnake " doubly sure" the ship was hauled away from shore, and continued, thus ■_„ until' 72 miles had been run, whenhsr head was. hauled up for WellingtonIn short,, to, make doubly sure &n: s&jfc inky night and on a lee-shore, a sup--1 posed wide berth of four or five miles was given to perhaps the most dan- . ger^uj^nd deceptive portion of^our .East Coast. 'One trembles - tp> ,tliink:j what precipices the " Waitaki" might have scaled had not. her skipper. been in this extra cautious mood. One year < ago ] the -;■♦♦ Taiaroa?' ,wa» ; f]osi££ further soutfi, but under "almost identical conditions. The excuse, tkere was, "Strong magnetic influences acting on the compasses, and flood tide acting from S.E;"M The excuse is, " Aberration of log and/ current from S.E.'* " ABerriitipn •#£• log" is even more mysterious .and con-, sequently more soul-satisfyTng ' than " Strong magnetic influences.!', . Now» in the case of the " WaitaM^ of th© •* Taiaroa," and of nearly every vessel wrecked on our East Coast, the cause of disaster— divested: of technical high f aluting — was, attempting to make a passage by hugging the shore, cutting corners, and of ignoring set of currents.' DoM^blame. the unforthnate skippers ? By no means. I blame the instructions given to thenvg^blame that unwritten law whichfae"crees that captains wha do not make, good time shall be. "sacked/ 1 Until a Bishop er Premier be drowned, and . an owner hanged the life of every coastal passenger is carried in the palm, . of every ship-owner's hand. It is high time Parliament enquired into this corner-cutting business, and that, our shjtp-masters , : should> oocasiona£J&} all»w a little for leeway. I Bm> in a difficulty. There has been a, meeting of the xemales of this city to consider- Jubilee arrangements, and my difljtiulty is to whether de-~ scribe this as a meeting ' oif women, a meeting oi ladies. Lady*- Jervois -w answerable, for the quandary in whiph,-' I find myself. During the early portion of the, proceedings the Governor-' ess (or should it be Governess) frequently alluded to the assembly; as "The Iti^'-^'yeiUnj^n^'^aVib. . wards the wind up -she "said she -thought Conu'nitfee ought io^ber* called a Woman's Oomaiittee, instead of a Ladies' Committee." WTj©tber the experience gained *\t the meeting 1 . ■led Lady Jervois to conclude that par- i ticular gathering was iiot composed v o| l ladies, og whether shecqinsidered there j: were no ladies "in- Wellington, your deponent knoweth not. Thje meeting^^ was certainly far from unanimous. I fear there had been some initial heart-' burnings on the subject of—^f b<>nnets;' s A number of the : ladies " (curf r women ?) had; 'at the jfirvt. intimatida* of the assembly; rushed off and bougUl new head decorations for the occasion. Others, owing to ( circumßtanceß beyond their control, had failed to supply themselves with these important, armaments, and io well-regulated female -wearing an antiquat&T bonnet, can view with equanimity "that other, person" tricked out in a new onei 1; Consequently there was a certain amount- of feline-sparring.- One^lady(or woman ?) t wanted an enjdowmente for the aged needy ; another demanded/] a child's ward for; theh,oepital ; again another pined fox. a. piano for the "Girls Club,"and the • Maypreis liad f •^ Heard a lot. of people say they wbiild[ not.giveany money to go out of the . ! the place," thereby incurring a digni- y . fied rebuke from the chairwo—chairlady. Then "haird cash was the' theme, and the ladies (or womeisL?^.'.or some of them took a hand in a litf le/ feminine game of bluff. A lady who - had done most of the talking went £1 ; : the next lady " raised her" Is. Thep another lady /^went $liU fetter, and . the next irai&ad. her ; £l . , Is.. MThere- ; upon, a pause, and the Mayoress (or Mayprwoman?) : ...went. ; ss.sS| 4 a'iid^ihji: next speaker going no Kgli^r,, tisjd^ .^-, Jervois bluffed £ 10, and^jßere be\j|jf -l',-.|tl no more r plajers /■<, .It has Btruck.me r that it.wouH'be^as^ 1 well, before another female .Jkbfle^ *„. . " < meeting is called, if it were au£hprita«'.*^ !5 tively settled as to who are w.c^ggnj-; r and who ladies. Ever since X^hea^t ' 4 . T" a small girl give the message i .' « Xp£ * lady< as cleans for you canf t coma; '!s§>*'. ... day. because she has to take,he.r^.&^ V, ; ; son on . the pianner,'' I :Bettled^ ; jp£-^ "^ there were no women in New.ZQa^nd;|^ • , My dictionary defines lady ; aSi v V{' A^. \. . woman of distinction:; a title prefixed ■' to: the name :pf, ; any ; womaa whose k husband : 'ia i np|;' of lower tank jth^a^V; ,.. - knight ; any woman' o^f^^ refine/l^ant. . nere and education. • Lady * wasJijjK/".Vciently writ, Hleafdwn, firpni \ ■lai?,^%~--loaf, and. Z>wn, to: serve, whence, j«dy - . means the ' bread-seyyer.' ". : , T indi©r. existing olreuuistancesi, ; and asj^adiea, •. dwii desire to become^ Jbreadrwin^erja .* dxidnof servers, it might he adti|e» ;^

able te leave the title, lady, for the •xelasive use of our female K.C.M.G., and such haukerftsses after "gentility," and to call all the remainder of <£c sex by the old title Woman. Efe was a woman, aud so, thank God, were most of uur motliurs. Only, now and again* >rhen "we meet one of these noble, brave, aud self-sacrificing woman of the old-fashioned plain pure type-— large of heart and brain, wear--44 the amaranthine flower" of true, hope, charity; and love; whose children call her blessed— when, I say, we encounter such an one let us salute her with the sacred title "Gentlewoman,"- if only to distinguish her from the if etnale of the K.G.M.G. ci hoc gemcroixMe. '^Tt* burning of our Post Office,may without hyperbole be spoken of as a national calamity. It was truly a fine edifice, and the postal and telegraph arrangements therein were as much a credit to the Colony as if the charred skeleton of the building a disgrace to those responsible for its safety. Imagine that vast and expensive structure, stored with priceless public records and' most costly aparati, practically left to the mercy of the first malignant stray spark, and with, apparently, ho provision for extinguishing fire save a hose not to be found when wanted. Each room should surely have been supplied with host, hydrants, and patent fire-extin-guishers ; there should have been a night watchman, and the whole staff should have been allotted to " fire quartern.'" But we can all be prophet* the event. Still it would seem as l if everything ln ; NewZlsaland which falls under the "balefxil influence of "''Government" is half done, well; and half totally muffed, as if only half the sepulchre— the outside --half— were waited. Nevertheless;; even in ihfa instance the wiod r is tempered to the shorn lamb— Gaptain Edwin has lost all his records and" malignant weather telegrams H Farewell ! a long fare welt to prognosticated hurricanes that pome in the form of dead calms, and to raging calms which have a knack of blowing your hair off. Still it is peculiar that ever since Edwin lost nis gear it has poured here without cessation. This doubtless is the Captain's mean revenge. Another consolation is derivable from the fact that the gentlemen wh« adorn our wharves with tobacco juice and profanity have had, owing to the fire, a first class show brought, so to speak, to tJieir very front door. They now congregate on the landward end of the wharf where, from mem to dewy eve, they sit on the rails; their eyes, expectoration, blasphemy, and blasting contempt alike directed toward the gutted building. This will serve them' for healthy recreation arid sufficaant 'employment for the next two ysaxs> ■'- . . . - ; ; ■•;■■-( . ;■■ • The Wellington and Manawatu JEaflway Company has been guilty of an outrage— of an outrage upon the most holy and sacred domestic feelof many Middle-aged Married Men hailing from Feilding and surrounding districts. Last Saturday night the . "'lCkado excursion^, , return train was advertised to leave Wellington at 1 1.30 p.m. Yes, sir, and actually did leave at or about that time ! What was the consequence? Why quite a number of M. M. M.— never a New Zealand train wild be dastardly enough to keep time — '■ were late I " Just five minutes late." a group of them explained oh Sunday,, ■'just ran down alene to judge whether the Mikado was fit for the old woman to -see* and lost the old train, and now here we are, stuck up until Monday. It's too bad, too-bad, by Jove^' ; But strong Christian fortitude enabled them to bear it. A small deputation of one was sent to church, morning and evening- -to find out the texts, the remainder spent the day in pious meditations. A good number of them went to Sunday school —-such nice Sunday schools we have here, with bottled and glasses all ranged upon the shelves, and such pretty young ladies for teach: — but there! wild horses shall drag no secret* from mcV Poor old boys !! :