Our Wellington Watchman.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2819, 10 February 1888, Page 2

Our Wellington Watchman.

Permit me, Mr Editor, cordially to endorse your remarks on Wellington which appeared under heading" Our Big Cities." You wrote

" The thirty thousand people in and about Wellington are well clothed, well fed, and well oared for, but the bulk of them are olustered in very small houses * * 'there are fivo thousand that live in small tenements whioh liavo very much the appearance of dolls-hoUBCB."

Tliis is all profoundedly true, though perhaps a large number of our houses should be described as rabbit-hutches rather than doll's-houses. This cooping up is the curse of Wellington, as also of other New Zealand cities. In a few years more, when the population is doubled, the unsanitary state of crowded Wellington will awake people to the fact that the greed of landlords is. more deadly than any hostile invader would be. Wo hear a great deal of vituperation aimed at the great land-grabber, but the man who grabs tracts of land where no settlement is, is a benefactor to his species compared to the little plodding, acquisitive quarter-acre section grabber in our cities, who builds three or four shanties where one house only should be, claps on comparatively enormous rents, js a terror to his tenants, but a burning light in his own pet sanctuary, and always puts three-pence in the collection platter, and is deemed thrifty and highly respeotable. Government interferes in a great Many things in wfyolutej

interference is unnecessary, but I can imagine no matter which should be of . greater importance to Government than the proper laying out of young cities. Men should not be permitted to build these hutches. The soldier and tlie prisoner are each allowed so many cubic feet of space, and Government flees that they get it, but the same Government recks little that honest men are cooped up in foetid lanes and so-called streets. Land values and rents in Wellington are simply absurdly high—would be high if we had gold mines in our back gardens. This inflated ' state of affairs cannot last. "Something must go," as sailors say, and it is devoutly to be hoped that the small land-grabbers will go.

The 1 leading morning jernal 1 poses ■ as an authority on a good number of things, and I regret to say that the jernal is not infrequently wrong. In a recent issue it gives out some gospel' on the subject of prize-fighting, and' among other things says' ' . "J. O. Heenan in 1860, fought renowned Tom Sayers, nearFarnborough, ■' \. when though the Benicia Boy was practically hors do combat, the result was a draw."

I don't know that it mUch but if a paper must write on so ■ blackguardly a topic,' it should, at least he correct. -As a matter of fact, Heenan was not hors 'de combat, though Sayers was. I happen to bow, because I was among the other Dukes, Lords, Members of Parliament, and Ministers of the Gospel, who attended that memorable mill. Bayers, however, much it may hurt our national amour propre, was licked, when the English roughs rushed the ring, and stopped the fight.

A fact not generally known is that Tom Sayers once received a thoroughly good thrashing, and in a few minutes, from a very stale and second rate fighting man '• Wychwood Forrester." It happened at Saville House, Leicester Square, at a great " Boxing Tournament" held there at which your Watchman, then an innocent and interesting' youth attended, jfcv "Forrester" and the famed BiM" : Duncan were boxing, and Saye™ who was a great bully, made some disparaging remark about the science displayed and Wychwood Forrester • invited Tom to " coom oop and do better," The hospitable invitation was accepted, gloves were" torn off, and at it they went. In five minutes Thomas's Mama would not have been able to recognise him, and when the police eventually rushed the stage the enthusiasm was tremendous. lam ashamed to say that in my unregenerate youth I thought these sloggers demi-gods. I have got over that but this I will say that in comparison with the pats of butter that now-a-days pretend to be pugilists, they were demi-gods. They were —with a few honorable exceptionsgreat blackguards, often criminal, but, by Jove, they could take punishment, and " gate money " was not their only object.

Looks like war, does it hot ? So much the better perhaps. A great . European war would clear • the atmosphere, cook the Conservatives, ; l sicken the people of fighting for the pleasure of Kings, &c., and advance true liberty by Yogel's leaps and bounds, We are sure to have war ere long. The Tories of Europe have only one panacea for the misery, destitution and starvation that alwaysobtains under their regime—that is War. War to distract the people's minds; War to kill off the surplus population; War to advance the interests of their military sons and nephews. A big European war now would disenchant the rising generation with tho whole business, and be the means possibly of giving the trade a death blow. By the way if you receive at any time a hurried telegram from me to the effect that I am coming to Masterton, you will know that the Russians are arriving, and that I retire gracefully to give some of the younger folks an opportunity to air their vra.