Old Grumble

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 55, 5 November 1891, Page 3

Old Grumble

ON-BRUCE'S HARMLESS PETS, THE ,STOAT ANTTWEA'SEL ' Tnete is no gi eater' enemy to' his country than ire who (wliatever lsins motive) "introduces 'into it '"some per nicious form of life, no matter whethei it is vegetable or animal, noxious plants or destructive creatuie, with a - view to its piopagation" 1 and increase , and Braced that sapient ex legislator, at whose instigation those herce rodents, the stoat and the 7 w easel, ha' c been imported, , and distubuted tliiougFout these *i la.nd ', 1 such an one Lime after time have faddists, reckless. r of itheir country's weal, im planted 1 in this fan land some evil thing, and when the bane became es tabhshed beyond eradication, have brought forward another and a greater to keep in check the^existing lesser one; until , the country is oveirun ■with undesirable inhabitants, and the people are- impo\ erislfed by^ the ac cumulating pests. Poor is that legis thatrtatn devise no other means of relieving one portion of the com inanity than iby/inflicting injury upon another and that a poorer section of it. That rabDits^ are" a nuisance Grumble admits, r Dut t*re the wealthy runhol^er's foe, not so the stoat and weasel. / It^is the struggling farmer, and the humble cottars depend Sing upon the rearing of pigs and poultry as^part of their subsistence,-* 0^ whom^tbe depredafions of the stoat ana.-weaselare most disasterous; and, amongst this, strugglingj class has the blood sucking^ pests /of I the Bruce alieady become a teiror Much cause have they/^O&fthankful^tolnim foi the use^he has< njade ofj lu§, position of MH Rin jinproving r the lot of that class it his boast he Delongs'to viz, the " working class "j, <When w f blundering Governments inflict _ such a wrong as sanctioning the infesting- of the country, .jtvith destructive "•vermin, what wonder'th.vt'the phild'of Erin on ai riving in a new land, makes it his first question Xls 'their a Government here V, and when told there is, ex claiming { Then I m agin it " But as the Bruce way still be sceptical as ,to the,, blood-thirsty chaiacter of ,-his pets, an authenticated list of a ,few of their depredations may serve to convince him Last month Hoeta had a litter of seven pigs killed by them m one mghfc Hoeta now utters continuous ana theiuas against -the introducer of the creatures. H. Hughe's poultiy yard has leen entirely decimated, and all around the Awahuri pah" there has been loss. Mr'Bnscoe has also lost a number of chickens, and Mr McDonald has had- several ducks destroyed Indeed every farmer around has received their unwelcome visits, and all ha\ o suffered accordingly. Truly "The evil thatr-men 1 do lives after while then? good is oft interred with their bones." That being so,"whentheßruce's interment tikes place so" small a modi i cum oi good is his, that it may well be buried' with Jnm, without adding one iuJnt-A^to _,his , funeraL expensesi Would that the evil he^ has wrought could^be^snrank to the same little .measure. Alas hat' cannot, butf will &~ live and multiply , and for geneiations -' tb^coin'e,' along with that evil/ will the ,name"of the Bruce be associated, and "spoTreri of with execration by^ many a future housewife as she gazes despond ently upon Tier lost callow brood, slam liy'the of Ins "'kaKovless pets" in their insatiable" thirst for lt>lood. t 3 r i Old frßuaißi.T3. [Our contributor is wrong in putting the whole blame of importing the " s pests complained of on Mr Bruce All that Mr Bruce did was to write that they- were not 'so black as they wefepwuted.'-JED. F}6,]