AN AMUSING ADDRESS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1364, 4 October 1883, Page 4

AN AMUSING ADDRESS.

Ma George Fisher, Mayor of Wellington t was recently placed in a difficulty, being charged with having altered a legal notice drawn up by the City Council’s solicitor to be served upon a certain defaulting contractor. A great dust was kicked up about it, and the worthy Mayor published an address to the ratepayers, in which he sought to exonerate himself from blame. His Ijterary style (says a contemporary) is very varied, and some of his figures of speech are amusing. The Wellington journals cut him up a good deal, the * Evening Post,’ particularly, and in his address he “ went for ” that paper with especial vigor. The ‘ Post’ “dives and ducks like a shag,” a “subtle malignity " marks everv lines of its “ lagolike productions,” an<f its remarks on the case are “ arrant rubbish ” and “ childish prattle.” It would seem this is not the first time he and the Post have quarrelled, for he says he had done nothing for a long time p< it that could provoke “ the opposition or the ill-will of its proprietors or its editor. I believed,” he says, “we had buried the hatchet, to use a colloqual phrase. But I have been slumbering on a volcano. That form of Eastern perfidy which lies latent for years baa burst upon me with the greater effect because of my unsuspecting trust in the friendliness of those who professed to be friendly. Never more will Ibe deceived by the velvet paw. The Thug was on my trail and I have escaped the fatal gripe. I wm caught in a trap, and yet I am not trapped, but what a lesson I have received—l who thought I knew so much of the world The solicitor referred to was Mr Travers and of him he writes ; “ But why should Mr Travels punish the City in order to punish me ? It is not usual to blow up a mountain to unearth a mole. We dig for the mole. But Mr Travers was wholly and solely engrossed with the idea that he would kill me, politically. Mr Travers picked up a red-hot poker.” One of the councillors is “ New Zealand born, and therefore deficient in phosphates”—a delicate allusion to a popular notion concerning brain-forming materials. The conduct of other councillors was so peculiar that he could scarcely restrain his feelings in speaking of them, “ but I must not become angry, because according to Longfellow, to become angry is to become undignified." If he did sometimes lose part or all his native dignity, it would not be wondered at for a few days before he “ had to perform the principal part in an Indian suttee.” Mr George Fisher does not stand fire well. In conclusion he asked : “ Suppose, for the sake of argument, I had committed an act of individual indiscretion. Is that one error to obliterate all the good I have effected throughout my career ?” The ratepayers are of course expected to cry, “ No, no,” with cheers.