Our Wellington Letter

Feilding Star, Issue 94, 1 February 1890, Page 3

Our Wellington Letter

{fbom oxrit ows ooxrespoxdent.j . Wellington. January. 30. The continued absence of His Excel lency the Governor from the seat of Go vernment is causing much dissatisfactior at head quarters. Whilst admitting thai a governor should travel, and see at leasi the principal parts of a country over whict he is appointed:, i? must be patent to His Excellency that the business of the country is necessarily retarded by his peregrinations around the colony for so long a period. The Times, a few mornings since, had a very severe leader on the conduct of Lord Onslow, and strongly commented on the cold reply given by His Excellency to tbe loyal address from the citizens of Wellington to Her Majesty the Queen, on the occasion of the jubilee celebrations, yu_d also on. the fact that whilst Lord Car- . rington, the Governor of Victoria, and Lord Scott, could make it convenient to stay and attend a garden party given by His Worship the Mayor, our own Governor could not see his way to do so, but left the Empire City again within a few hours of his arrival. Lord Onslow's treatment of the citizens of Wellington since his arrival in the colony has been most severely criticised and condemned. It is said that old age brings in its train scond childhood, but from what has been presented to us of ldte, one symptom of childhood seems to return to some when they should be in the prime of manhood. Quite recently in our local Supreme Court we had the case of a man, who had been charged and convicted of an unmentiontionable offence, fainting and crying at intervals while sentence was being pronounced upon him. Now the cables bring us the account of a similar scene having occurred at the trial of the murderers of Dr Cronin, and last Tnesday we had the amusing scene in our Resident Magistrate's Court of a great hulking fellow, a ■*' greaser" on board the Mamari, blubbering like a child when convicted of having stolen several articles belonging to the •Captain -of the steamer. These little incidents tend to show us that courage and ; fearlessness are not to be found in the hreast of the murderer and the robber, but rather in 6uch noble souls as Lord the hero of Trafalgar, whose physical strength would never have enabled him to win a boat race yet who knew no fear ; and Father Damien, the leper priest of Honolulu, who coidd face death calmly, feeling that he had done his duty to .his God and to man. We read in Scripture that at Jubilee time in the ancient days all debts were forgiven, slaves were set free, and tliat it was a, time of great rejoicing, but it seems that there are in our midst at this Jubilee time some like Shylock, in the " Merchant of Venice," who will haye their " pound of flesh." A hard working " bodice hand" in one af our drapery establishments was granted two days holiday on the occasion of the Jubilee celebrations last week, but on Saturday night she was informed by her generous employer that her pay had been deducted for those two days. Surely this person must have had some conscientious scruples as to his duty towards himself and his family. A woman, evidently of the Good Samaritan type, tried a few nights ago to place some condensed milk and several pings of tobacco under 6ome bricks near tlie new gaol, for the use of some of the prisoners but, unfortunately for her, the gaol officials had got scent of the intended visit and a couple of Warders were deputed to watch for the law breaker, with the result that they caught the good hearted woman in the act at eleven o'clock at night and next morning she was sentenced to 24 honrs imprisonment or the alternative of paying 20s -to the Treasury funds. It seems hard that the. law should be so severe, but looking at all sides of the question perhaps it is better that it is so.