Clerks as Cowboys.

Waikato Argus, Volume XXIV, Issue 3782, 15 May 1908, Page 2

Clerks as Cowboys.

By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. Some curious letters are received at times by the Labour Department, but a naive communication to hand yesterday will not soon be surpassed for unconscious humour. The letter reached the Department indirectly. It was addressed, “To the editor of the public or farming paper, Wellington, New Zealand. Very urgent.” The communication was transmitted to the editor of publications, Agricultural Department, who passed it on to the Department of Labour. The letter reads:

“Dear Editor.—We, three English subjects, are not at all satisfied with our present mode of life. Our nature calls for a wild life, such as farming or cowboy’s life, the latter particularly. We should be greatly pleased if you would kindly advertise this in various local papers. Our present occupation is that of clerks in a large lace warehouse, which does not suit us so much as a wild life would do. We should all like to work on the same farm as we have all been chums the greater part of our lives. If any gentleman farmer wishes to take an interest in us we should like him to pay our passage over there, and we should fully reward the gentlemen with small instalments from our wages. Any gentleman that may need us might write and let us know full particulars, including wages. _ It would suit us to earn a proportion wage and live in together. Please state in letter what port to land at, and kindly meet us on coming off the steamer. Our ages are respectively as follows: —20, 20, and 18. Hoping you will look favourably on our letter of application etc.” The Department is replying that farm positions are obtainable in the Dominion but that the condition of life are not what the writers imagine.

The Department has also received a letter from a draper’s assistant, in St. Peterbsurg, aged 24, “healthy and generally considered fairly smart,” who wants to know what his prospects would be in this trade in New Zealand. There are at present vacancies in the trade.

Another letter comes from a cabinet maker, who has a fancy for rabbit trapping, and is-desirous of taking up the employment in New Zealand. The Department’s answer will be virtually “Don’t.”