WANDERING, WEARY, AND HOMELESS. TELEGRAPHIC.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 443, 17 December 1908, Page 3

WANDERING, WEARY, AND HOMELESS.

TELEGRAPHIC.

Pathetic Wayside Incident

An Octogenarian Tramp.

Yesterday, just before noon, writes a Manaia correspondent, a very old man with a huge untidy swag strapped to his shrunken shoulders, and a bundle in each hand, might have been seen wearily trudging along Queen street, says the Masterton Daily Times. Nearly forty years ago this same man —even then middle-aged—used to pay periodical visits to this town, when cheques of from £bo to £,BO were knocked dovVn by him in the characteristic fashion of the station hands ot those days.

In his early life a schoolmaster, later a contractor, still later a common station hand, and last act of his eventful history—a miserable tramp, at an age beyond the commonly accepted span of human life. It was with feelings of pity that I watched this pathetic fragment of homeless humanity bending under his weighty swag, and weightier years ot threescore and eighteen struggling with the buffeting wind, and blinding dust, on his long and toilsome tramp to Te Nui.

We often r esort to efforts of the imagination to gratify our morbid taste for the tragic in human life. In what pathetic abundance in our very midst can the actualities of life supply our needs in this direction ! Nothing but leaves, no garnered sheaves Of life’s fair ripened grain ; Words — idle words lor earnest deeds; We sow our seeds —10, tares and weeds ; We reap with t6il and pain— Nothing but leaves, •

Wellington, Dec. 15. Intimation was made in the Supreme Court that a claim for , made by Eva Fy field against William Moore, of Palmerston North, for alleged breach of promise, was being settled out of Court. The case was adjourned till next sittings. Wanganui, Dec. 15. Tom Dong, the hangman, was killed while- felling bush at Kaungararoa ta-aay. An inquest is to beheld. • • Uucklajso, Dec., 16. - The scow T£ia Ora struck a rock off-Kuwau last night, and three lives were lost-—viz,, Captain Ed ward Piercy, aged 55, a married man, whose wife lives at W”ckj-uid. fames Piercy, his son, about 30. . The coojk of the vessel, whose name is at present unknown. V One seaman was saved. The Kia Ora was owned by y’As bound from NgungurU'-'-to. Auckland! loaded with logs.