MR. BARBER AND THE BOULDER. Some Other Stumbling Blocks.

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 216, 20 August 1904, Page 6

MR. BARBER AND THE BOULDER. Some Other Stumbling Blocks.

MR. Barber, M.H.R. and City Councillor, recently stumbled over a lump of road metal, and stubbed his toe. He took the stone, and exhibited it to' a smiling City Council as an evidence of the sufferings of pedestrians in Wellington. It is variously described as '.'as big as a fist" and "two pounds weight." We sympathise tremendously with Mr. Barber, for we have stumbled over street boulders that we couldn't carry away. * * * If it becomes the habit to exhibit at Council meetings the things one stumbles over m the streets of Wellington, and the things that ought not to be there, it will be interesting to watch councillors' and others staggering towards the Council Chambers with old horse cars tinder their arms, traction engines in tow, dram pipes, tram rails, banks of clay, hand-bills, Italian organ men and monkeys, saliva, mud-heaps, waste-bins, and packing-cases. * * • - It is curious that a councillor should have selected one of the most needful things to exhibit. Some people would be glad to stumble over acres of metal, let alone one bit. The Premier wouldn't need to wear goloshes or go wet-footed if metal was commoner than mud, which, unfortunately, is not the case. Another useful exhibit would be a convoy of the drays, lorries, traps, buggies, waggons, and carts that pull up m the centre of any side street in Wellington m the dinner hour. * * ♦ Some councillors might also take a sack and get an exhibit of the sand or mortar that is so frequently to be found on footpaths m front of buildings in course of constructin. We could fill a tolerably decent-sized barrow for Councillor Smith with rotten timber that cumbers some sections in the suburbs. We could show Mr Murdoch where he could get a nice load of old bricks for exhibition. All the other councillors could be fitted out with telegraph poles, whereon the midnight wayfarer barks his shins, and a few open and pestiferous drains in the suburbs look sweeter on the map than they would in the Council Chambers. On the whole, if each councillor goes in for producing exhibits calculated to annoy citizens, the Council Chamber and the adjoining yard had better be enlarged pretty soon.