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LABOR LEGISLATION.
The Dunedin correspondent of the
Argus, in his letter of 2nd September,
writes:—‘ An amusing skit on the
labor legislation of the present New
Zealand Government has been perpe
trated by Mr Buckland, who has intro
duced in the House of Representatives
the “Washers and Manglers Bill.”
It defines a mangier as “ any
female who undertakes the vio
lent compression of any wash be
tween rollers at so much per dozen.”
Washers and manglers require to be
licensed, and to obtain a license acer-
Coate must be lodged with the Minister
for Public Works signed by four
justices and a policeman. The ser
vices of the Minister for Works,
Minister for Labor, and Auditor-
General are frequently called into
requisition under the provisions of the
bill, and the Minister for Labor is
called on to conciliate when a dispute
arises concerning a wash, which, if it is
unsatisfactory, the Auditor-General
has to personally inspect. The whole
bill is cleverly worked out, and bristles
with penalties. There may yet be
some trouble over it, as the Govern
ment party are incensed at the clever
parody of the grandmotherly legisla
tion, with the crop of inspectors, which
has formed a feature of their policy.
The Government Printer at first de-’
dined to print the bill.’
If every minister, priest, rabbi, and
Sunday school superintendent would'
select eight or ten young men and
spend two weeks with them under
canvas by the side of a mountain lake
or trout stream, more good might be
done in permanently influencing their
ives than by many weeks of eloquent
preaching.— Scribner’s Monthly.
Three of the Royal equerries receive
£6OO a year, and the three juniors get
£5OO a year each. An equerry has
three months of duty at Court on
paper, but in reality it is very seldom
that he is in attendance for more than
one month altogether. The Queen
never has an equerry at Balmoral, and
very seldom at Osborne.
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