SOLICITOR AS SAILOR AT SHILLING A MONTH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3760, 28 February 1928, Page 4

SOLICITOR AS SAILOR AT SHILLING A MONTH.

DARGAVILLE MAN’S TRIP. Sydney, February IG. The experiences of Mr. Douglas L. Ross, solicitor, of Dargaville, as an amateur sailor, have interested the Sydney press. This is one paper’s account of him: — To meet the only real sailor in Australia who receives the princely sum of 1/- a month, it is not necessary to visit the Sailors’ Home —he is staying at the Hotel Australia. In the person of Mr. Ross, Syd-ney-siders may meet the man who is, for the time at least, living a Rolls Royce existence on a Ford salary. Mr. Ross is now a member of the crew of the schooner Margaret W., at present loading a cargo at Port'Stephens. He proudly displays a series of corns on his hands to show that his job on the schooner is no sinecure. Actually, he is a solicitor from Dargaville, New Zealand, and is also deputyMayor of that thriving centre. His health being on the downgrade, he decided to take a three months’ holiday, paradoxically enough striking a job which entails harder work than he has ever attempted before. “And it is doing me a world of good 1 /’ he said. At the > end of three months —the schooner sails from Port Stephens to New Zealand again and will trade round, the coast there Mr. Ross falls due for exactly 3/- in wages, and, he hopes, an honourable discharge. By that time, maybe, he will have to. bring strong legal argument to convince himself that he should return to shore life again.