WELLINGTON LETTER.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXI, Issue 3898, 16 May 1899, Page 4

WELLINGTON LETTER.

(OWN OOBBEBPONDENT) OHUBCH BAZAARS AND THE TOTE. Wellington is growing oppressively moral. There has recently been a terrifio tempest (newspaper) in a tea cnp over a Church (Anglican) bazaar held here. Both morning and evening papers have denounced the whole affair, at which a colourable imitation of the tote was in full blast, and at whioh young ladies officiating are al leged to have been too much in evi dence. The local grandmamma waß especially hysterical over the matter,hut there, the dear old lady has constituted herself custodian of the ethics of the community, and is nothing if not moral, except perhaps when oolonial beer is on the tapis. She has no word to say against that product. Perhaps she compounds for sins she is inolined to by damning those she has no mind to. Not that it is intended to be insinuated that she herself consumes improper quantities of colonial tanglefoot, but merely that the paper is largely run in the interests thereof. At the same time it must be admitted when we come to regard clerical diatribes against all forms of gambling that the description of gambling carried on at some church bazaars evinces that clerical precepts and praotice are not always synonymous.

THE UNEMPLOYED. By a polite fiction the unemployed question is supposed, under the benevolent regime of King Bichard I, to be dead and buried. Ab a matter of cast-iron fact it is still walking about —to save funeral expenses perhaps. At anyrate the Wellington Benevolent Trustees are kept pretty busy investigating claims for assistance. The other day a man able to work, but who declined to go home and do any needed work there, was threatened with prosecution for failing to maintain his family and there are, no doubt, many such cases. But it is evident to the most casual observer that numbers of men both able and willing to work are out of employment here. Apropos, the unemployed question, some Maoriland newspapers hare accorded much importance to the proceedings of a so-called citizen committee in Sydney, which has recently been discussing in a solemn and serious manner the whole problem of the want of employment. The self-styled committee has chosen a somewhat sonorous title. Those, however, acquainted with affairs in New South Wales know that it is constituted of a few professional agitators, tempered by one good-natured minister of religion, and two or three others, anxious for notoriety at any price. Sydney simply teems with loafers, many of them men of education ; some who have held first-rate positions, who would not work, save for a day now and again, for any earthly consideration that could be offered them. How they lire none may say, but they do, wax fat and hang out the sign of Colonial beer and 40 rod whisky on some of the reddest noses in the world. Once in a way they agitate and then the Premier, G. H. Beid, finds them work (?) scraping park railings or shifting sand.

THE MYERS CASE, The Myers proseoution has been dragged at long length through the Magistrate’s Court and the accused has been committed for trial on several charges. The Evening Post has an editorial, written with quite sufficient —but the general opinion is, j ustifiable —warmth, challenging the manuer in which Stipendiary Magistrate Kenny has permitted this caße to be conducted. The Post characterises that manner as “ a travesty of a Court of Justice and nothing short of a public scandal,” and further declares that some of the witnesses for the prosecution were “ browbeaten, baited, and abused with the apparent approval of the benoh, in a manner that bordered at times upon absolute brutality.” This, it must be admitted is strong language to use, more especially perhaps in connection with a case practically sub judice ; it is, however, largely justified by facts and by the interest of the public. This browbeating of witnesses, by some solicitors in the Magistrate’s Court of Wellington has—if we except the regime of Mr Martin—too long been a public reproach and disgrace. It tends to defeat the objects of justice, by making possible witnesses use every device to esoape being called, and by terrorising them, when they are captured, into statements which they think will placate the lawyer who is torturing them. It is by no means insinuated that all or even many of our Wellington solicitors are bullies in cross-examination. Souae are, and any magistrate with a proper appreciation of his responsibilities would suppress them. This oourse, Mr Kenny has on many occasions failed to take. The consequence is he departs from Wellington to Wanganui, and not unhonoured, at least unwept, unsung.

PARLIAMENTARY HOURS. Attention has, in more than one instanoe, been recently called to the late hours observed in the House of Representatives, and as an example of the deleterious effect ot this discipline upon the health of members, the Christohurch Press mentions the indisposition of Messrs Cadman and John McKenzie. These late sittings are a very antique grievance indeed and are the more indefensible because entirely unnecessary. If the House of Representatives cannot do its business in reasonable hours, then the session should undoubtedly be lengthened until it can. In no other business in the world do men make owls of themselves, and no decent owl works hard at some other business all day long and then goes to the more important business of catching mice at night. AN AWFUL OUTRAGE. We are not an easily moved people in Wellington, but when the fountains of our emotions are opened the universe pauses to look and listen. A dreadful thing has happened. In a oentral portion of Lambton Quay there waved to the zephyrs one or two trees of somewhat blighted aspect. Some person, presumably a City Counoil official, misunderstanding his orders which, it is alleged, were to trim the trees, chopped them down with all the ardour of a Gladstone trying a new

axe. Then, when Wellington awoke and found that the woodman had not spared that tree, there arose to high Heaven suoh shrieks of rage and despair as may have been heard when Rrchael mourned for her ohildren and refused to be comforted. The looal morning paper simply tore its venerable hair, and scare-headed an article “ Whom shall be hung? Vandalism Extraordinary 1 Destroying a Plantation 1! A Disgrace to City Management 111” and permits John Plimmer, the alleged “Father #f Wellington,” to remark in its columns “ Whoever ordered it to be done englit to be tarred and featheied, and whipped out of Wellington.” And we are a law-abiding stoical people, generally speaking 1