EARLY DAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 129, 4 June 1927, Page 17

EARLY DAYS

IN THE 'FIFTIES

LETTER FROM A SETTLER'S WIPE

-'NO TAXES; NO RENT!"

[ A resident of Wellington when on . a recent visit to England purchased a first-bound edition, orf "Household | Words/a Weekly Journal Conducted by Charles Dickens," Volume 4, dated 13th March, 1852, contains a .letter headed "From a Settler's .Wife," which gives an interesting account of Auckland as it then was, and how. the new land' impressed an emigrant -from'" the Homeland. The writer says in part:— "At last, after a. weary : voyage of four months and "fourteen days, the welcome sight of land repaid us for all our troubles. . We reached Auckland, our destined home, the seat of Government, and'the capital of New Zealand, on the 18th December, 1851. It was early .morning, and the conimen«emen.t S d *ysueh as only shines';upbn the faouth Seas, We sailed into. a: capacious basin, indented with numerous tiny bays. The forelands iVting out on these were clothed down to the water's edgo^with.verdure. ... We had, on landing but a damp i-ception. Thero is no wharf, nothing.but a jetty, thrown out by one of the principal hotels. It was.low wate?, and we could not land at this, so'we were obliged to disembark at a reef, in which: adventure I nearly took seizin of my new country, as William the Norman did of Eng- ■™' 'v? y measuring my length upon it. We - hired a small : house, containing three roomsfiat five; shillings-^ week, to be paid, the landlady emphatically .said every. Saturday night.' The lodgings were furnished, and .bur first meal was a farce, at which, although we were the actors in it, we; laughed ■ heartily. Our tea equipage consisted of an inverted tub,-with a towel over, the bottom, for a table, a couple of basins and a hook-pot, with plenty of new bread and fresh-butter;, the unimaginable delieiousness of which none but Tone seayoyajgers wot-of, vA- rocking-chair fell to my lot, and a'crazy box supported my spouse; yet I doubt if ever tea were more thoroughly enjoyed than ours was that night. ■.• . ■ .'flKa^few days, when we became a little, more settled,,my husband was out from .morning to night, walking the country in search of land, for although he is an attorney, and has now good hopes of a moderate practice herb, we thought it advisable, as we were not rich, to put. ourselves out;of the reach of want, by undertaking the tillage of a. little land. It was some time before we could find any that . exactly suited us; at last he hit upon five acres, with a small house on it, two miles from town, for which we gave £40. The house is built ■of rough unhewn scoria stone, plastered and white-washed within; the roof i 3 thatched with rapu, a kind of reed," of which the Natives form their huts. The flooring is sound, and the roof not low. Tho interior area of the entire mansion measures exactly 20 feet by 10 feet, but by means of a curtain is divided into an eating and sleeping apartment; these in their time play many parts; diningroom, drawing-room, boudoir, kitchen, nursery, library, and study. I brought -up an idle English lady, accustomed to., pass my time as I pleased, to divide it between books and amusements, but giving much more of it to pleasure than to study—am the household goddess of this paradise. Hero I waßh and cook, feed rriy goats, and dress my baby, or when the little gentleman sleeps, endeavour to give you some faint idea of tfie toils and pleasures of an emigrant's life.! But rude as our home is, we love and enjoy it more than.l can describe; for it lias the. inexpressible charm of being——our own. .

ATTRACTIONS OF THE COUNTRY.

"To the tenant farmers of England, Now Zealand offers a tempting home. No taxes, no tithes.^no rent! There is good land for their seeds, and a good market for their produce. The farmer's wife may sell her cheese at one shilling a pound, her butter often at two shillings a pound, while cattle and stock of every description are cheap. -The emigrant most welcome in New Zealand is either the capitalist or the poor labourer. The land wants men —men used to working with their hands.

"Let me put in a good word for my own colony to anyione who thinks of emigration. 'If you are not doing well in the Old Country, and you feel it, if you discern no sunshine in the darkness around you; above all, if you are industrious and enduring, then emigrate. . ... Its climate is one. of the healthiest in the world,' far before that of Australia, or Van'Diemen's Land. There is not a single venomous, scarcely a destructive animal in it. The colony is yet in its first infancy; at the same time it bids fair eventually to equal any colony in commerce, as it already dees in natural advantages."