Our Wellington Watchman.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2802, 19 January 1888, Page 2

Our Wellington Watchman.

"The service is" indeed " going to! the devil." The New Zealand Civil Service, I mean. Major Atkinson is planning a diabolical scheme by which visitors to Civil Servants are to be excluded from Government Build-: ings, at least prior to 2 p.m. of each working day. As a man and a brother, I want to know how the Major expects a. Civil Servant to get through the day, if he Is to be thus debarred from all intercourse with the outer world. Say a man gets down to his desk by 10 a.m., well, he has four long weary hours to cousume 'ere his friend, Montmorenci Buggins Browne, will be admitted to cheer his. solitude and relieve his ennui by a description of the billiard match played the previou evening at that' well-known hostelry' the' Pigeon Cot,' or to soothe him with a recapitulation of the rounds fought at the Opera House= between the redoubtable. Pat, something, and the Te Aro novice. Ths Major wants to shut out all sweetness and light from Government flerk. It is too bad! How on earth will the poor fellow spend his time ? Say he makes his toothpick and the remnants of his boarding-house breakfast hash last 80 minutes, and his nails another 80, that only brings him up to 11 a.m. Suppose he dodges the leader in the leading, jernal,. and hunts therein foiv the. mail notices, even those exciting pursuits 'will barely, carry him through the next half-hour and the poor creature has then two hours and a half with absolutely no distraction. It is tyranny, nothingelse.

But this is not the worst, The Major is having prepared a series of questions the answers to which each employee, under the rank of a head of department, will have to declare oh oath before a Justice of the Peace, on or before the last day of the current official year. These questions are very searching, and are framed with the design of making the Major thoroughly acquainted with the private affairs of those under his sway. By the courtesy of a high official, I am enabled to a afford your readers some specimens of the Major's categories. Here they are: Nol. Are you married or single? If married, how many times, and are your wives all living ? No G. Are you a householder ? If so, do you have your rubbish regularly removed, and your chimneys swept Produce last receipts for rent and certificates from dust contractor and sweep. Also a character from your lady-help. No 9. If a boarder, how long have you lived at your present residence?

No 10, Why and-how. did you leave your last boarding-house? State whether you left by day or. night and whether you left through the door—or otherwise,

. No 13. Do you wear flannel under clothing ? State whether you are in the habit of eating onions, and what your grandmother on the mother's side died of, No 17. If not married state whether you are engaged, and to how many ? (Here insert christian and surnames of the ladies). If engaged how do you find it agree with you, as far as you have gone ? No 22. If married what monthly nurse attends your family. State, also, whether you keep fowls, guinea pigs or other domestic and ferocious animals. Further state whether you keep your mpthewii-law or she keeps you, ! and who keeps the latch-key (if any),

The Major means well, no doubt, but he is hardly thorough enough, I should advise him to close Government Buildings altogether, and have the clerks out in the open, picketted, with head and heelropes, and withnose bags to eat their, luncheons from. Then, when the gallant bushwhacker required a little relaxation he might walk down the lines, with a bullockwhip, and tickle up any inattentive clerk, and talk bullock to him. Or perhaps the best plan of all would be to work the Civil Servants in a chain gang. Atkinson might occasionally mount guard with a blunderbuss, it would remind him of old times, and the weapon would bo appropriate, because, take him full and bye, he is really iu some things the most confounded blundering old smooth bore extant. ,

But everyone has not this opinion regarding the Major. The Army and Navy Gazette has not, -The Army and Navy speaks of New Zealand's "able War Minister, Major Atkinson." How's that for high ? And the Array and Navy mu3t be a good judge of War Ministers, if it knows as much about them as jt does about geography. That venerable journal, treating of our defences, says that we have overturned a precipitous island into the sea-to,form""an artificial breakwater, against the huge Pacific rollers that sweep in mountains high." The Army and Navy says also it procured its information from that " able War Minister,' Major Atkinson." The Major has, I fear, beon playing it rather low down, on the estimable fossils that jerk the geography for the dear old paper in question, Atkinson must have sent them a map of New Zealand, in which Stewart's Island was marked as a breakwater. But there, iq the sweet long ago, I myself hadthe Army and Navy on I don't boast about it; -the old dears responsible, for the Army, and Navy Gazette are the most guileless and believing of beings,'

This is how jt happened. An Engglish country Editor, my bosom friend —I paid for the drinks—on one oooasion betrayed my an. extremely objectionable practical joke of which your unfortunate Wellington' Watchman was the victim. I swore a J terrible revenge-and waited. To the patjent man all things come at last. Eventually my Editor asked' me to accompany him to. a sham fight whioh oocurred in our neighborhood. I went, As the

different evolutions, proceeded, he asked me what each was. •He said ho. was not only going to supply a report tohis own local paper but to the Army and Navy Gazette* and: he wanted; his report fuller of military technicalities than almost any report since the creation of the world. : I think I supplied- that Editor with every military • phrase/1 had ever heard, and with about nine or ten thousaud I had never heard. He put them all in..' The technicalities were a little mixed. In point of fact they were a good deal mixed.. I think, in one place I described •' battalions as forming echelon by the front of fours three quarters back on the rear company of the alignment of the first squadron standing to the left on the manual and platoon exercise by the wheel about.of fours." It was some-, how like that, anyhow, and he put it all in as I said, and dispatched his report to the Army and Navy Gazette, and they put it all in. and his own paper put it all in, and bragged consumedly about _ that report. And . when the two papers caine out it was rather exciting, I believe, to see military officers of various ranks, visiting these two newspaper offices with horsewhips. My. friend never even thanked me.

Of course you know all about our piracy excitement in connection with the yacht" Dido."—l see, by the way,., one of our local papers calls it the •'!barratry" of* the yaoht "Dido." Barratry sounds. more toney than piracy, but all the same it does not describe the offence. But that's neither here nor there. The' leading journal' declares that this theft or borrowing without leave suggests the absolute necessity for a boat harbor in this port; one of the evening papers ironically supports the proposition on the grounds that someone might go on board the" Nelson" and steal her. Well, if there were a few more Chinamen in the country even that might happen. Way back m the fifties, during one of England's opium wars, the Chinamen stole the port bower anchor from one of* EM; ships—the " Niger," if my memory serves. They would nave stolen the starboard anchor too, the next night, only that was on the bottom. However, they did the next best thing. They stoppered the chain unshackled it, and stole every fathom abaft the shackle. And tho next night they stole the boilers clear and clean out of one of the largest P. and 0. steamers. These stories are all true and copyright.

A Chinaman can steal most anything, but there is a tribe of hill dacoits in India that give them points in scientific larceny. These hillmen can steal your immortal soul if you have one. They prefer your bedding, however. Any fool could steal a sound sleeper's top blanket, but to abstract the sheet and blanket that he lies on -that is science. The dacoit is quite naked, except a thin coat of oil, and he squats down and tioklesthe sleeper's back with a feather, and the sleeper rolls away from the tickle. When the victim has rolled well over to one side, the artist rolls the sheet or blanket close up to his (the sleeper's) back in as small a compass as possible, artd;thengoes to thenar sicfeof the bed, and tickles the fellow on his other side, and he naturally wobbles. back again, and the nigger rolls up that sideof the blanket; so the man is now lying in the centre of the;bed, on a thin ridge of sheet or blanket, whatever it is. Then the thief buzzes in the sleeper's ear, after, the manner.of a mosquito, and the man says in his sleep, shoo! and Hits himself a bang on his cheek, and, as he does so, is sure to roll heavily over the ridge—and the booty belongs to the honest dacoit.

Regarding this Wairarapa gold, when are you going to strike it rich ? People down here, after sneering at the very mention of gold in the Wairarapa being sceptical indeed of any good thing coming out of your Nazareth—now begin to shake their heads and murmer mysteriously that they should'nt wonder if there was not something in it after all. By the way if you oould manage to strike it fat Anyway in Masterton township, there would be no difficulty about watar, eh ? His Washup the Mayor would ido the necessary washing up, would he not? At least he would if the Council did not aggrivate him too much. One or two old Mastertonians now resident here, great admirers of your Mayor, say, if he is allowed his own way, he will bring the water along right enough, but he will never finish the job. They say he assisted once in the pre-bistoric period, at a big New Zealand earthquake, and that it so impressed him with the mutability of earthly affairs, that he has never finished anything subsequently. Being a man of immenso energy he.has attempted a 1 heap ot things, but just as he gets interested he remembers that old quake and says ■" Oh darn it, what's the use; we'll have that darned old airthquake along again, and it'll shake the darned thing down:" One informant says he starts building houses but never finishes them, hut'it is only fair too add that another authority declares the reason is that your ■Mayor is so religious that he is content with a half-finished residence here, because he knows that, one of the many mansions above is ready furnished waiting for him, But, my stars I What a splendid New Zealand autocrat your Mayor would have wade, Atkinson's pretty good that way, but not a patch on A,VV,E, We are aU anxious now to see how Mr Eenall will djspo.se of his refractory Council. Opinions are divided. Some think he-will hang them, or, at least, drown them; others declare that he is a mercifullyminded man, and will permit them to performftjie hm-hri.

The rnan known as" The Whiffier" has been making himself a public nuisance again, by firing off a gun in the street.' A couple of ladies, in the line of fire, were exceedingly frightened, judging' by the fellow's appearance, that he was dangerous. The.local papersi unintentionally, no .doubt, encourago this stupid individual by reporting his exploits, whioh js,pr>

oieely what this variegated ass- aims' ;;> : ail A inan-neither drunk nor Hiad-- ; ..;> r tlieidiotic; desire; for; " •notoriety, fires off a gun in the sti'eefc,' ;= ,■ thereby alarming, and perhaps serious*^.: ■ ly'injuring a delicate woman; deserve^' 1 - :■:'.. a thorough good thrashing, and I ta&Sv - ; : . leavo to think that if the Whiffler : *|, received that regimen, we should hear fIP very little more'. of ■ hi? monkeyish ; exhibitions,