Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/118

 public places here, we see this sign very frequently: "Citizens, protect your own property." That is, everything belongs to the people, therefore why destroy anything? Some people are natural vandals, but people of a little culture and refinement never are In New Zealand, a woman has no interest in her husband's real estate. If a man desires to transfer a piece of real property here, his wife's signature to the deed is not necessary, as is the case in the United States. Still women have full suffrage in New Zealand Not only the talk is unintelligible here at times, but I see advertisements in the English newspapers I can't understand. Here is an exact copy of an advertisement in the Wellington Post of this date:

WANTED—A General. Apply Mrs. Focke, 210 The Terrace.

If you know what Mrs. Focke wants, you know more than I do. Here is another advertisement from the same newspaper:

FOR SALE—Butchery business; going concern; average weekly killing, 6 bodies and 30 small. Victor E. Smith, Box 59, Fielding.

I haven't the remotest notion what the advertisement means The newspapers here, of course, have taken after the street railway company. They demand a universal fare of two cents, instead of two cents a section. It seems impossible to run a newspaper anywhere without abusing the street railway. One correspondent of The Post says the street car company is entitled to take in only enough to pay actual running expenses, as the increasing value of the property is profit enough At luncheon today, our waiter at the Grand Hotel brought me an extra dish. "American pork and beans," he announced triumphantly.