ANOTHER TARANAKI SCANDAL.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2396, 20 November 1880, Page 3

ANOTHER TARANAKI SCANDAL.

A queer style of management prevails at the “ Front.” Large numbers of the men are leaving in batches small and large. This is partly due to the reduction in their pay, butmoi’e to the absui’d way in which things arc conducted. It would appear that the force is enrolled on the system so satirised by an American humorist, who described a company as consisting of ten officers, three privates, and ten gallons of whiskey. And if the resignations go on in the front, as they have been going lately, the force will be nearly all officers. That will, however, be attended with one good effect; there will be some work for the unemployed, because no work is done by sergeants, first-class constables, or second-class constables. All work has to be done by third-class constables. Is it any wonder that the road work does not proceed with astonishing rapidity, and does proceed with unaccounable slowness ? This is how the distribution of labour goes on. Every two sergeants have three full privates to wait upon them. Inspectors and sub-inspectors are as thick as blackberries, and jostle one another to the right and left. No matter how many of the rank and file leave, the full strength of sergeants and inspectors is kept up. If a gang of forty men is sent out roadmaking,uo fewer than thirteen sergeants and one inspector is set over them ; so that if an unfortunate third class constable happens to straighten his back or look in any direction, lie encounters the eye of a superior olficcr of some sort fixed upon him. No wonder men feel such close supervision irksome and annoying, and chafe under it, especially when the commissariat is badly managed as it is, although tbe contractor is making a rapid fortune. Tbe men are often left without fresh bread, and then have to put up with biscuit of an inferior quality ; tbe meat is very often defective, but the force arc attended to in one respect at least in a most perfect manner, and to that extent the contractor is deserving of the highest praise. Dread may bo wanting, and may not be up to the mark, but there is always a never-failing supply of—beer; and though the men may be disgusted, the contractor is happy, and puts money in his purse. Such is life at the front, as experienced by the rank and file of the armed Constabulary.