AN ADMIRABLE CRICHTON WANTED. But Don't Ask for £100 a Year.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 128, 13 December 1902, Page 8

AN ADMIRABLE CRICHTON WANTED. But Don't Ask for £100 a Year.

ANY duly-qualified man, who is a good inspector, engineer, surveyor, and cashier, providing he has a good private income, may have a billet that will keep him busy between meals, by applying to the Hutt County Council. At a meeting, held this week, and at which it was decided to employ an Admirable Crichton of the type indicated, the Hutt County Council threatened to give such a man £100 a year. Thia was so obviously absurd, that one councillor, evidently aghast at such lavish salaries, said they could get a man for less. ♦ • • If the Hutt County Council was a business man, who wanted a genius of the kind they are looking for at that price, or leeo, we should not hesitate to stigmatise his conduct as that of a mean, cheese-paring, avaricious 1 person, with no bowels of compassion, or any just estimate of a "fair thing." Being the Hutt County Council that is requiring such a man, it would be exceedingly wrong of us to call them anything of the> kind. It is perfectly unneces-

cary to point out that the economists who are inviting persons to send in. applications stating what salary they are prepared to accept, so that he who will work for the least money may be ohosen, are just the people to grasp what is going, and as much of it as possible. • • • It is meaner than words can express to trade on the fact that an unemployed man, of perhaps good attainments, is forced to offer himself for a pittance to keep himself alive. The Hutt County Council know what it is worth to do the work of inspector, engineer, surveyor, inspector of niuisanees, and paymaster. That being so, they have a right, as business men, to boldly state it in plain figures, and invite applications from men who are willing to accept the sum. If the; Huttt people will' calmly allow a man must have good attainments to fill thus various billets at a sweating wage, them they are not the class of people we take them to be. • • ■» If those councillors were seeking to ruin their chances for re-election on tihat Council, they are certainly doing their best over the question of a good man for a, miserabls dole. Imagine an officer, who must dress respectably, perfoirming thosj multifarious dutries for leas than £2 a week. He will not have any time to see his wife and children, of course, but if he should, he should get the Council to supply sacks for clothing for the youngsters, and allow them to camp in the goodssheds. In the matter of food, they should recommend the Australian bankcountry drought diet of bran and treacle. The Hutt is going ahead. Its citizens are prosperous. There are no paupers there. They want some, hawever, and they want a talented man, who had better be a duly-authorised surveyor and engineer, to be chief pauper. • * • There is not a man this side of the Tasman Sea talented enough to suit the requirements of the Hutt County Council. That body should hold over the appointment until they can advertise in the London "Times." If an influx of population is required from England, the Continent, and the United States,' let the people in those countries knowthat wages for genius range as high as £100 a year in this country. Then, stand back, and wait for the rush.

Misa Alyoe Holxoyd, of Wellington is makine; a name for herself over in Australia as a gifted elocutionist. Her reputation in] that line was already made before she left New Zealand, and it was on the strong advice of Mrs. Robert IJrouech, that she went across to Melbourne to develop her great natural talents for elocution. Miss Holroyd has been residing in Sydney of late, and sne has made numerous* appearances in public, both in recitation and amateur theatricals, receiving: warm praise on all occasions from tihe press. She is also a great favourite with the public, and on a recent epnearance, received three consecutive encoires.