Pat Hinnessy on the Water Scheme.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 317, 18 January 1902, Page 4

Pat Hinnessy on the Water Scheme.

(Dear Mister Editor.)

Bkfohk I say anything on this groat quistion I would loike to make a few remarks and to ax a few quistions, I read ivery one of Mister Lysnar's letters to Biddy, and Biddy she says, “ That man tackles mostly iverything, from milkin cows down to prohibition,” “but I reckon,” she says, “ that he ought to be a parson : the hist of them only git to 1 secondly ' and 1 thirdly,’ hut whin a man can git to 1 ninoteonthiy,’ I reckon lie would become a Bishop in a month,” and begorra can’t he twist! He first of all battles for Mangircki for eighty thousand pounds, and talked no ’britches pocket business thin, but ho soon found he was loike tho little boy what foil out of the balloon —be wasn’t in it, and now he tells us we can’t afford thirty thousand—that’s a twist I

I don’t profiss to be an ingineer, but I was born wid a pick in me hand, and—bad luck to it—l’ve had a pick in me hand iver sinco, and I knows a bit about a dam (no, Mister Editor, not the one you mean), and you can tako my tip it wouldn’t take many pounds to make a dam, a timporary one, above the (alls, and we would soon see if it would hold water. Begorra, the money spint on pamphlets and printer’s ink would make the dam itself. If the dam will hold water (which of course it will) thin we can put in the pipes and have an nquatick display wid Mr Bysnar as centre figure. Biddy is a groat woman. She says ivoryono needs water, some more nor others, according to what they’re workin at. “ Perhaps," she says, “ lawyers don’t need it at all, but I’ve heard it said that they have very dirty work to do.” Then she says, : Paddy ye want water, but the illcmonts are again ye. Whin people have plenty they forgot wlmt it was loike whin they had none. ‘ Pray, Paddy,’ she says, 1 for a dry summer, and thin begorra you'll soon get a water supply 1” It might mean a • few weeks in the hospital wil a big doctor’s bill to pay, and —the curse of it —a few of the lives of our best lads.

Ivory year have wo had to pay wid the health and even the lives of our dear ones for tho meanness of a few beings (not min) widout a soul above a shillin’. I ax ye all this : What is a small rato, ora big rato neither,-compared to the health and lives of our dear lads? And, mark mo now, I don’t say that water will kill fever, but water will give us drainage, and drainage will at least kill some fever; ana I say if it only saves onG life a year, thin I say it is the duty ofivery one of us to make a sacrifice and help to save that life.—l am, your humble servant, Paddy Hinnkssy.