LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 7, Issue 331, 19 February 1863, Page 3

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

(This letter was crowded out of last week’s issue.) Wanganui, Jan. 31, 1863. Sir, Mr. Townsend could hardly have chosen a worse illustration than , that in Ins letter. There are more fees paid in connexion with surveyor’s work than perhax>s any other kind of employment. For example; if a few yards of new road is required in England, two copies (one sealed up, the other open) of the Plan, Section, and Reference have to be sent to the Private Bill Office of the House of Lords, ditto House of Commons, ditto Clerk of the Peace of each county, and one copy to the Clerk of each parish through which the road would go—and with each copy a fee of 10s 6d lias to be paid ; any one afterwards inspecting any of these copies has to pay another fee of a guinea, and 2s 6d an hour for any time he may take to make copies or extracts from them. In fact, in short lines the fees and expences often amount to more than the surveyor’s own work ; and as this last has to pass the ordeal of two Parliamentary Committees, at least - six or eight months must elapse before it is paid for. Indeed, if, after the close scrutiny to which these documents are subjected, any discrepancy between them, or any omission or tangible error can be proved to exist, the surveyor will probably not get paid at all. I, however, during some years’ experience, never met a surveyor who, in engaging to supply r aud deposit such documents, objected to the fees, or deemed the payment of them a less ordinary business transaction than a chain-man’s wages. 1 need hardly say the documents would not be received without the fees. Every man in business must be- prepared to incur outlay in some form or other, and it is absurd for him to grumble, at it. Mr. Townsend’s position is quite untenable, being in effect this, “that whenever he chooses to do work on spec, our minister shall, nolens volens, become a partner in the speculation.” He apparently cannot, or will not, admit the plain business principle,—“ that having ordered certain work, and bad it executed to his order, he is bound to pay for it; and that when or whether he gets paid again is no one’s affair but his own.” He, moreover, in his interviews with Mr. Hurley and myself, maintained that the payment of the fees rested with the relatives of deceased persons. The answer to his question, ‘‘ Why Mr. Hurley and I did not summons him ?” is plain. Neither churchwardens or vestry have anything to do with these fees. The minister has to receive and account for them. The interference of the vestry in the matter just amounts to this —as representing the parish, we think that after a death in a family the clergyman’s duty is to comfort the survivors, not to demand money of them ; and that it would not be seemly for him to have to dun or summons an undertaker for these paltry sums. ’We, therefore, insist, that the usual course of the payment of the fees by the undertaker at the time of a funeral shall be pursued here; and we authorise our minister to decline receiving funerals from any undertaker who will not comply v r ith this rule. Can Mr. Townsend sav we are wrong? In aetinir as m-ve done, I believe we are supported by every parishioner who knows the facts of the case ; indeed, the only one who to my knowledge has blamed us, did so for not advertising the notice as well as posting it. I am, sir, your obdt. servant, H. 0. Field.

Salt Petre, January 10, 1863. Sir, —Paddy says that Misther Domit’s lether appaalin to the patriotism of the black North to come forward and walunteer for self dewlience (whfat other sorte of dewhench cud he mane ?) is the beginning of a corse of caudle consistin of milk and could wather—the watlier greatly predominatin ; flumery to be given now and then as a tunic. Maybe you have herd ov Mistiness Caudle, a decent woman that does all the gud in the worl, and by gor, if all the Government turn out her equals we will get the Queen rinscliated by lectherin, and widout the help of the 1750 shutes of regimintils, that will extind, if put in a sthring one shute after the other, two miles all but a bit. Paddy says bud yude be wexed to hart, onest man, to bear him abuse the tliorities for the want of branes to git up a walunteerin sphirit widout the intenvintion of pauper elothin from the shoddy mill. He says the clothing ill fit thim like a haporth of tobacco in a sack or be too small, an if they get it althered it ill be puckered and wont fit a successor, and if it does it might be the manes of comveyin a certain fiddle to the recover of the ould clothes hily contejus and resultin in sudden jerkins of the elbur joint, wid a like applicatslnm of the nales to the part affected, and from one part to another ; its a worry disagreeable complaint, an its mostly attinded by a moving disorther that wants sharp isitp au quick lingers to combat wid ; an lie talks about moths and Government clerks dhressin poles wid the elothin in the back yards of the Government inklings to play at sogers wid him an air the rigimintils at the same time. Wididuot be fine fun for them in their ours of ixlaxatshun and be the manes of proparin thim for grate commandthers entirely in case of an invatshun of the Frineli, commanded by Boney’s son, their prisint l’mperor and the great regenerather of nations. He says, I mane Paddy says, a good blanket wid a little sugar givin now an thin wid be more servicible to walunteers than the line cloths wid the white facings an the wlii te fetlier ; did you iver here the likes of him putting a white man that’s crassed the world on a livil wid the Haribogins, ocli, och. Well thin, says Paddy, maybe you’d like a blue shurt and a good thru sty frize cote to be out afther nite in and before brake of day in the mornin, my juel ; or maybe you had bether go back to the beginnin an give Mr. Fox’s allowance of £75 per aim. to eclie compiny, being about the price of one native magistrate for the same period, and let the walunteers cloth themselves ; how do you like that, ould woman ? Well, I like Fox bether nor any of thim, if he was once put to it; an so we had bether dhrop it, for you always git out of timper when it comes to high polities. I say it meself that’s ony a female woman, if Mr. Fox was in office he wid not come wid a poor mouth an him an say wid .puritanical strate-hared liipicritical meekness, We are werry sorry some one has used you badly ; ourselves are bud poor, hud weel sthrain a pint and “dliress you up in scarlet red and use you werry kindly,” but widout plenty of guns and amminition. Misther Paddy, Misther Fox wud have sinfc home at wance for the value of the elothin in the best rifles and ball cartridge to arm every man and mothers’s son, an women too if it comes to that, in the black North, an afthenvards eonsidther about tlie elothin ; an Misther Fox wid put the saddle an the rite horse by narnin any one that was to blame, an I rispict him for it, an not be hintin, as the prisint people are doin wid him, that thc} r don’t want to throw wather on a dhrounded- rat, whfen all the time they are thryin to let it .into him. Put that in vonr pipe and shmoke it, rays I. Wid that Paddy miniioned somethin about the Missionin',

{when I fiew in a passion wid him an sed, Do yon think the gintloman hasint a sciil to save as well as me or you, an whfere wid he go wid id but to the clargy? This of course floored JJaddy, bud he sed nothin, ony wint off whistlin, dhry like; but heie sure to come back an me wid the dubble. recover, an lie let you, know whfat he says, bud you niusent mintion a word of it to man or morthial, for Paddy says he nose whfat’s the mather wid walunteerin, an how it mite be stirred up, but he does not want to go deep into the subjec at prisint. Wid affection,, yours thruly, Judy.