THE PROCLAMATION.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 29 January 1901, Page 3

THE PROCLAMATION.

(To the Editor.) Sib, —I attended to-day with all loyal subjects outside the Post Office at 12 30 p.m., according to advertisement, to hear the proclamation read by His

Worship the Mayor. As the Mayor absent in Dunedin it was tolerably certain that the Mayor could not read it. Then the question arose as to who was to read it. The audience were ready, the platform was ready,. hut the reader was not. The audience were goodtempered and waited. The minutes lengthened to fivers, and still there was no sign.—“ Somebody had blundered.” The Borough Council for the novice had removed its sittings from its usual meeting place to Ecvington’s Hotel, where the question as to who was to read the important document was to he entrusted. Time rolled on and the “good, obedient British public ” were in waiting. Still no appearance. The late Queen was a model of punctuality, but not so her deputies. Time was nothing to them, let the crowd wait. All knew that the Borough Council were assembled in due deliberation, and all waited the results of the deliberation. Some people said : “In the absence of the Mayor, the Town Clerk ought to read it.” Others said that the i».M. ought to read it, and others said th.it the Chairman of the County Council ought to do the necessary business. Evidently there must have been a split tip ; for, if I hear aright, tho person who ought to have road the proclamation was the Chairman of the County Council, as the proclamation said, I believe, to His Worship tho Mayor, or in his absence the gentleman who next represented tho local bodies. Perhap I am wrong; if so, why the blunder as to keeping people in the rain for a quarter of an hour. Surely these things ought to be settled before the hour of appointment. Iam ' Cte - - XXX Greymouth, January 28th.