CRANKY COCKY.

NZ Truth, Issue 73, 10 November 1906, Page 3

CRANKY COCKY.

TO THE EDITOR

Sir,— As a reader of your valua-ble paper I would like, if you could tell me how, to prescribe for the bite oE an insect that is making itself a thorough pest at a place they call Valley Road, not far from Raetihi. This insect goes under the name of a cockey who owns about twenty acres of mud, which represents nothing better than a dunghill, and who, for fear that we navvies would not take him for a full fledged farmer, and salute him, has started a. pkm of campaign which not only annoys us but which is a hindrance to the work of tire Government.

This puny, would-be aristocrat not only stops the work, but goes so far under the threat of the law as to stop us men from getting water for drinking and for cooking ; and not only that but he has stopped the Government horses, employed on metalling the road for his own benefit, from watering m tlia creek, though he lets a contractor's horses —another cocky who resides next door to him— water at the same place. The plea that he has got is that the G-ovarnmant men 'and horses dirty the water m the. creek ; and yet he has the forequarters of an old hack and a cow lying m the same place putrefying.

The next move of this scion of an agricultural race was to evict the men from camping on his ground, which happened about three weeks ago, m very wet and cold weather, and which has compelled our travelling about another mile to our work, over a very bad road, and which was the occasion of the men losing time wlien we could have been working. Our lot is not a happy one camped up here, very near a cold mountain, that we should be the shuttlecock of a chicken-breasted coclcv who does own as much land' as would fill one of the navvies boots, and who, Sir, if you made enquiries, you would 'find has been nothing but a nuisance to his neighbors since he came into the district. I would like to ask you, Sir, if the Government could not do something to check this meddler, whose sole aim is to stop the progress of the work and whose delight is to make the lot of the men who are on the work as hard as he possibly can. I. would also like to know if, when this man took over his 1 small section of mud, did he take the sote right of the mountain and the water that flows from it.— l am, &c, A VICTIM. Raetihi, Octo-ber 11, 1906.