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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 71

Rumour and its portets

page 15

Rumour and its portets.

Rumours of the impending dissolution had been rife throughout the day, and expectation of the end hung like a pall over the community, adding to the gloom which the elements produced. From time to time these rumours took tangible shape, and word flew from mouth to mouth that Death no longer waited for his victim in that house beneath the Tinakori hills. Telephone bells were set ringing to every possible source of information, and along the wires came the anxious query, "Is he dead?" As the afternoon wore on a definite statement that the end had come led to flags going slowly up till they floated half-mast high above the city, giving outward symbol to the feelings of the passing crowds below. The Land Board were sitting, discussing a question of routine, when to them came a messenger with word that the Premier had passed hence. That was at 4 o'clock. A hurried consultation took place, and the Chairman announced that the meeting would adjourn as a token of respect. About the same time a case was proceeding in the Resident Magistrate's Court, when intelligence of the rumour was brought to the Clerk, Mr. James, who informed the Bench. Mr. Men-teath at once rose, made feeling reference to the news received, and suggested adjournment. Mr. Martin, the R.M., said that, in the face of the national calamity which had befallen, he would immediately adjourn the Court. The telephone wires soon conveyed this rumour back to the Chamber of Death itself, where the man whose affliction had so moved the multitude lav, with the hand of the Destroyer upon him, it was true, but not yet across the borderland. Back down the wires came the announcement that the time was not yet. Meantime the rumour had been flashed from end to end of the Colony, and many of the papers published at 4 announced the death which did not take place till 6.20. The Premier's own paper, the Wanganui Herald, was one of these, and came out with turned rules, while the man whom it mourned still lived. As the day closed in, the public feeling, so long tense, grew and swelled, and, in Wellington, the Evening Post office was besieged with enquirers. This at last induced the posting of a notice that the Premier, though dying, was not dead, but soon after came the expected word, and the notice was changed.