Our Wellington Watchman.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2836, 1 March 1888, Page 2

Our Wellington Watchman.

To the profound of those, well-meaning but pessimistic persons';, who can discern, owing to our secular; syßtein of education, nothing Imt R lack\ »f ulf.tliu virtues in the youih of New' Zealand, I would most, respectfullysnbmit the'death scene of: he late John Robert Whiterod, Hged uTteen, and ■of Greytown, who, when drowning,, ro-.,' refused to permit a younger brother■',to attempt to save him for fear that'tb'eyi would both be drowned. Had heroic" young WbiteroWwed in- ancienfc.Athens or Konifj they, would have eivcted him in marble or built him : i temple; had he residedjn England, mtl had he been Lord Whiterod, or,; the Hon John Whiterod, thffnews op], kis splendid self-sacrifice would-/Itaya: been flashed to the "four corners'^-of; the round earth; rivers of garish gusb.4 would have flowed. j in a thousand.; pulpits the act would have had tempes-;: tuous truiiipjtings, and saponaceous :gop'dy tracts this heroic d|ed. have rpointe^iorala: or tales adorned, ' JAsit isj poor Jphu' was only .pimple, little-known,' NeyZealand country" boy, ancVmany, tnay ?: naturally suppose that JRperfume.of' his bravery andjnoble sea-denial', will . but shed its fragrance round the narrow local limits of Lis grave.

But it seems to me such deeds canl never be wholly lost.', A stone is/cast; 1 into water, and the water records the' fact by ever widening ripples, which" touch the utmost limits of the pool. So, with a noble deed, the act, though ,we cannot detect the process, sends out its ripples too, touching the heart of humanity to the utmost limits of earth's time and space. And the inspiration from such self-sacrifice as that of brave young Whiterod will live long after his name, his deed, and resting place ire forgotten.

An reste, our secular-systera-hating pastors may take fresh courage, and ihose who declare the rising generation of New Zealand lacks pluck, backbone, and virtue may smile again —the country and system of education that can produce such this are not altogether There s a great agitation every now and again for hiltl fi . re ading in our schools; pending the legalization of such a proceeding, could not our Educational authorities insert the story of young Whiterod's death in their school text books}

There is another little matter crops out from this. The Educational Great Mogul, Sir Robert Stout, has periodical attacks of publicly enunciated self-adoration, when he contemplates the improvements he'alleges he has introduced into our Educational system. His latest hysteria has been »n the subject of technical education. Well, there is a little matter of techm. cal education—beneath the notice, I presume, of so gorgeous a political pedagogue—which, under his administiation, quite languished, and was tacitly pooh! poobed! I allude to education in swimming. Mtear after year, boys and young manWe drowned in this country in a f«\v feet of water, and too often the onlookers, unable to swim themselves, stand supinely gjijfc/, and yet no organised attempt is'Sle to teach every child—male or female—in our schools to learn a simple art, the acquisition of which is of most vital importance. In a country like this every person should swim, and every person soon might swim if a few hqurs every season were devoted to teaching our children, whether in public or private schools. The Government which in these days, having the power to enforce education, fails to compel a knowledge of swimming, not only fails in its duty, but connives at murder and is, when a child is drowned through ignorance of swimming, accessory to its death.

•'Our George" will kindly make ut note of this. I know lie reads your Watchman with the most respectful attention; as however, this issue may possibly escape him, please, send him a copy of the WiUky- with these paragraphs marked,

W>'ote Fletcher of Saltoim; " I knew a very wise man that believed that, if a man were permitted to mdlo all the ballads, he need not care wlo should make the laws of a nation." If this be so, would to Heaven that some gifted ballad-monger would arise in New Zealand, whose songs should act upon our laws, for we are swamped and water-logged with laws and byelaws, and cannot move without breaking our shins against a peeler, or inspector, or magistrate, or judge, or something,

Tliisis an old impression of mine, but it lias been considerably intensified by 11 late visit I paid to our Police Court. There were two estimable citizens on f he Rench looking as wise and as somnolent as boiled oils, and there was a Lord High Chancellor or Settling of that sort without a wig or'gown, Loosely scattered about the Court were a multiplicity of'mimhetsav the foorce' with the potatoo bloom and ten inches of brogue upon them. There was also a gorgeous creature in blue and buttons, and a beak viho conducted the prosecutions, anofput oufc more forty-horse-power side in croslF examination fhau and English Solicitor General. The Lord Chancellor afore-said-whoni I was told but did not believe was only a sort of cheap assis. tant-magistrate's clerk—and the'hero with the beak like the prow of a Roman galley-ran tho show between them, The defendants were mostly cabmen, unrepresented by counsel, who had been guilty of nut walking round a corner, or plying for hire at a railway station, or some other similar blood-curdling felony and ferocity, And remarkably litttle sbontfn cabbies had against that array'oF'legol talent. The J. P,\ on. the Bench looked as if they would have liked;': occasionally to temper justice with mercy, but on showing the slightest signs of such weakness the bobby and the Clork were down upou them in a.

trice, and live shillings line and fifteen shillings costs were awarded right and left. One of the chief witnesses was a y new poliji'iimn—a tender young tiling, so recently from the wilds of Comicsniara that I make no doubt he retained on his toe-nails the scars of lire received when pulling the • spuds' out of the ashes. He made several mistakes in his evidence and mixed dates n little, and it was touching to see the soliei tude his elder and more experienced compatriots manifested for these littln slips. One of the J, P.'s— probably sslmmed of his job—snubbed the suckfaring thief-taker, who looked ns if he going to weep, but when be left the witness-box his comrades comforted him, and lie was soon all right; indeed he com mencetl to tickle wuh a piece of paper the neck of another peeler, and his innocent young face broke out into smiles, and looked like a carrot field with tho roots upwards, touched and glorified by tho summer sun, For the matter of that, the police seemed thoroughly to enjoy themselves, "Five shillings fine and fifteen costs!" I said to a reporter who has grown grey and wicked in attending m Police Courts—"Are not such costs • enormous?" " What would you have?" . said my friend, " How are you going to keep up this staff of big policeum and clerks, if they don't earn the money ?" I said to myself—" Ah I here is that dismal old law of supply and demand again. A conservative demand for these Hibernians in blue, causes a supply of criminals. Were there fewer police, these unfortunate cabmen, instead of being chivvied about, and dragged away from their honest work, would bo lelt alone." "After all," said the reporter, " the police are not to blame; it is necessary for them to live," Whereon I thought of the mot ascribed to Talleyrand, and muttered morosely—" I do not see the necessity,"

And if we must maintain all these ' guardians ot the law and order,' why, in thunder, don't they maintain law and order 1 They seem to be always hunting up trumpery eases, while the ok things they ought to do are left fp undone. In a radius of some two hundred yards from one of the principal streets in Wellington, are no less than three houses ot ill-fame, at which there arc nightly disturbances, but I am informed no mournful Bobby's monotonous footstep ever echoes in the neighborhood, Can it bo that these houses or some of them being owned by a M.L.O and J.P., the peeler's native delicacy of feeling precludes his interference.

The subjects of law and order naturally bring me to the subject of the Perambulator Fiend, The P. F, is a woman, at least she dresses that way, but she is a woman of a cold, niornse, and sanguinary type, and nothing in the way of heart br>ats beneath her steel-ribbed corset, She wanders the streets at all hours, from dewy morn to eve, ever seeking whom Ehe may devour. Her weapons are a # perambulator, a child—when she can't find a child, the family washing or a . cwt. of potatoes suit her just as well—an eagle eye, and a superhuman knowledge of the exact spots about a male person's shins and ankles by hitting which she can soonest cripple him for life, Whenever the Wellington woman feels sick or sorry, whenever tho old man has been to his lodge overnight, or when his pockets on shaking up did not pan out well, she picks up that accursed instrument of torture, and set 3 out to revenge her wrongs on the ruale adults of the Empire City. Escaps her! Try it. You see her coming, looking as inno-

cent us Eve before the fall. You at once take azimuth and cross-bearings of her position. Then you set your course. North by East h E will—you think, poor fool—bring you several points clear of her. You proceeed jauntily. As yon near her you feel certain you are safe,—When-A grinding of wheels being put hard-a-port; the pram answers to its helm »like a shot, and tho next moment the thing is in to you, smashing your shins, crushing yonr corns, ripping your pants. Before you can fetch breath to fire off one cuss word ut she pirate, who

has been following you all the while, come 3 up astern, and away goes your $>- port shin, a fathom of trouser leg, and the small remnant of the grace of Mod that the first buccaneer left you. As tho tears of ineffable agony well up to your eyes a twenty stono woman and twins hit you fair in front, and as you go leaping, screaming, weeping, howling into the gutter there rises a chorus ot "Why don't yer look where yer goin'—Stoopid ?"

There is a law against these prams: Polico Offences Act 1884. Do you suppose the police enforce it? Not much. The other day while a friend of mine was wrecked and raked fore and aft a constable viewed the catastrophe and asked him ' why he didn't ito out.of the way, bedad ?' and threatWd to run him in for conduct calculated to cause' a brache of the pace, so it was. 1