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Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2361, 27 August 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Prince of Wails. —A baby. A Catholic legend says the devil once gave a hermit the chance of three great vices, one of which was drunkenness. The hermit chose this as being the least sinful. He became drunk, and then committed the other two. “ Ah ! what’s this ? ” exclaimed the intelligent compositor—“ Sermons in stones, books in the running brooks ? ’ That can’t be right. I have it! He means ‘ Sermons in books, stones in the running brooks.’ That’s sense.” And that is how the writer found it. A gentleman of decidedly nautical appearance, who was awaiting the commencement of a political gathering, gave vent to his views on the vexed question of protection by remarking, “ Oh, those protectionists : they will never be satisfied till they have fenced New Zealand all round so that no one can go out or come in, and we shall then eat one another up in about twelve months.” Writing about Mr. Maxwell the Evening Press says:—"But why, in addition to this, he should have £l5O, allowed him for travelling expenses in making a trip Home, passes our comprehension. It is said that he is going to attend a conference of railway engineers at Milan, in Italy, that he may be able to pick up some ‘ wrinkles ’ there which will be useful to New Zealand. Therefore, the taxpayers of this bleeding country are to pay £l5O for his travelling expenses. This is really too much. Mr Maxwell has long enjoyed a salary of £IOOO a year, and he is well known to be a wealthy man. He chooses to go Home for his own pleasure and profit, and the colony pays him full salary while away, so that he may be at ease and get the utmost benefit from the rest and change. Why then should the taxpayers be burdened further on his account? Because he is going to pick up wrinkles? Our own opinion is that there are far ton many wrinkles already in the Railway Department, and the sooner a good many of them are smoothed away the better. If this official-ridden colony is going to be experimented upon by all the latest fads from the conference at Milan, in addition to those already in operation, then, we say, it would have been better to give Mr Maxwell £l5O and double salary not to go there, or else to stop away altogether. We do not want any of their wrinkles. W hat wo want is a stop to be put to this system of extravagance by which a sum of money, equal to a year’s income of an average family, is handed to one of the best paid officials in the public I service, for travelling expenses on a holiday trip.’ I