HIS KICK

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 150, 17 February 1932, Page 7

HIS KICK

ELOQUENT METAPHOR OF AN INJURED RATEPAYER. "LAZARUS AT DOOR." The heights of pieturesque metaphor have been scaled in an indictment, contained in a Ietter tabled at the municipal council's last meeting, coneerning the council's attitude towards those whose rates are outstanding. "To the officials of every municipality," wrote Mr. W. Scott, of Wollumhin Street, "a poor ratepayer, who through misfortune is not as prompt with his payments as the wealthy property owner, is regarded as an odious approximation, a preposterous shadow lengthening in the noontide of the town's prosperity, a perpetual recurring mortification, a Lazarus at the door of the Town Clerk, the mote in the eye of the cashier, a lion in the path of. the nuisance inspector, in other words, the fly in the municipal ointment and the hail in the finaneial harvest. "The only method generally known and adopted by these officials of bringing home a wandering sheep of a ratepayer is to worry it to death. "To prove this contention," continued the letter, "some hrilliant intellect of the council staff has introduced the age-old idea of surcharging the poor unfortunate who is unable to take advantage of the discount in connection with the liquidating of his electric-light bill, the sum of 2s 6d being charged as collecting fee. "The amount of this fee, seeirife that it is collected hy the council apprentice, would cause Sir Otto N. to blush with envy. "The local official who introduced these methods into this municipality must have heen a relation of the fellow who landed on a deserted island, put his hand in the pockets of the TmVM anrl ^