A WORD FOR OUR PIONEERS.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2120, 21 June 1907, Page 3

A WORD FOR OUR PIONEERS.

At the social tendered to the Messss and Misses Falconer at Milton on Friday evening Mr J. A. Duthie, who presided, spoke in eulogistic terms of the character of the early settlers in that district. He knew them all intimately, 'he said, and they were of all colours, for they included Blacks, Greys, Browns, Blues, Whites, and Greens.—(Laughter). They were men pf high ideals and had left their impress on the place for good. They had left us a heritage of which we Bhould all be proud. There was no country so clean and so pure, as their own colony. He had travelled in other labds and could vouch for that. This Was entirely due to the early settlers, who had started on lines that could not be erased as long as time lasted. As a proof of his statement, Mr Duthie related very naively how, in a town of the size of Milton—which he would not name—he had a conversation with the landlord of an hotel where he stayed. In that town, no bigger than.Milton, there were 95 hotels and. 95 policemen. Being, of a. patriotic nature, and having Scott's hues, there & man with soul ■o dead," in his. mind, he said to the landlord ';' D© you know how many policemen we have to look, after a place of this size in New Zealand? Well, we have one. He is clerk of the court, takes up the census, serves sum-< monses, acts generally as inspector of various matters, looks after the licen#mS. b^ c J}<i:.AWl » half hjs time, unemployed. —(Boars of laughter.) Now * i j i no * ® xa ßß era te it one bit. He told that landlord that the policeman j <

' never "ran m" a man unless he was 1 a vagrant and simple,, and then i only when the, police, buildings wanted 1 to be painted! or thej?arden dug up. 3 —(Loud laughter). /When one travelj lea and struck a town like the one < he mentioned it 'Was'then he realised & how good arid; clean Milton and simi- & lar towns in the colony were. He was 5 satisliedUthat-the. early settlers had a I very great deal to do with that state * of affairs.—Bruce Herald.