The Evening Mail. TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 1878.

Oamaru Mail, Volume III, Issue 657, 11 June 1878, Page 2

The Evening Mail. TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 1878.

We are not; prepared to believe thai Mr. SiiniM.sKi quite counted the cost when he, with clothes yet moist from the hcavy dcw that fell from the heavens last week, rushed to the !North Otago Times oilice with a complaint that it had all occurred through the negligence of cahmen to do their duty. Xo one will doubt that it is annoying to be subjected to the ruthless handling of the weather when yo;i are in a position to pay to be transported to the door of your residence in a cab and thrust straight into your warmed carpel slippers ; and yet the cabmen resent the imputations contained in Mr. Shkimski's letter, which was written in a stylo peculiarly his own. What have they to urge in defence of conduct which has been productive of so much inconvenience, not to say anything of the annoyance ? They open by desiring to enlist our sympathies on behalf of the ill-paid cabmen of Uamani. We do sympathise, but what has that to do wirh their neglect of duty ! Any amount of sympathy will not obliterate the unfortunate past from the memory of him who was left in the streets in weather nor fit for a dog to bj exposed to. We will postpone the bestowal of our sympathy until we read further. They " are under all restrictions," they tell us. " that pertain to cabmen of large cities in the old country, with very little of the remunerative chances, and not a single one of their conveniences." What has that to do with us ? True, they don't make m.uch out of us ; but that is because we have a vehicle of our own. We would probably not have required their services at all had the weather not been too bad to bring out our own conveyance ; and just when they -were required, they were riot to be found. The cabmen -want to persuade us that they are not compelled to be out in all weathers and ready for hire. But we say that they should not only be out, but that they should inquire whether they are wanted of each person whom they meet; and that they should not be bluffed off by "Ko," but persistently follow up people, especially in rainy weather; because who knows that a man who at first answers " ISo " may not afterwards change his mind, and that just at a moment when cabby may have taken his departure. The argument of the cabmen may appear sound to the majority of people, but it will not stand the test, of our weight}- objections. We have actually heard the argument advanced that the system we have suggested ns a means of overcoming the evil complained of by Mr. Sbkimski would be impracticable, because a cabman would wear out his horse, vehicle, and himself before the day had fairly begun, and that without putting a sixpence into his pocket. It is not our business, after having provided valuable ideas, to work them out. We expect that to be done by others in such a manner as to prove the excellence of those ideas. We are told that a four-wheeler got stuck in the mud the other day near Thomson's soda-water manufactory, and that man, horses, and trap were out in the pelting rain from morning till night, and we are asked, " Is it reasonable that Lis license ■ should be taken from him for no other reason than that he has been unable to undergo another fourteen hours' exposure '?" Well, this will require a little thought. We must have the fellow somehow. He had no right to get stuck in weather such as that of last week, and just when he might have been required. If he had got stuck in fine weather no one would have complained ; but to do it at such a time admits of no excuse, so far as wa can at present see. What Mr. SHRiUiJSi very properly insists upon is that the o»ba shall always be upon thej

recognised stand. Some cabbies may s;iy there are difficulties in the way of doing this. Of course ; there is nothing in this world that is not more or less encompassed by difficulty. They would perhaps inquire how they are to ply for hire and still remain on the stand. At the present moment, we freely confess, we fail to think of a solution of the difficulty ; but we leave the explanation to Mr. Shrimski in the assurance that ho who has given birth to so excellent an idea will be able to demonstrate how it is to be worked out. Do not let us perpetuate the evils that exist in other parts of the world. We have often been annoyed, after having rushed to a cab stand, to find that there was nothing but the stand itself, and we have as often deplored the melancholy fate that seemed to have rendered such a state of tilings irremediable-; but we have surmounted the difficulty now through the superior intelligence of Mr. Shrimski, developed under most distressing circumstances.