"THOSE GOOD OLD DAYS."

Evening Star, Issue 7259, 9 July 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

"THOSE GOOD OLD DAYS."

After one of the disastrous fires in Wellington which took place a few months since the goods saved were sold by auction, and amongst them a tin box containing old letters and a letter-book, apparently only rubbish. It was bought for a trifle by a gentleman travelling for a foreign house, and who ' thought the box not only worth the money, but suitable for containing his luggage. Not interested in the letters, he passed them over to a friend, who, after amusing himself by examining them, forwarded some of * them, interesting on account of their reminiscences, to this journal. The writer, a lady, we have no doubt would not object to their publication, but possibly is not now in the Colony. Not having, therefore, opportunity of communicating with her, we • omit her name as well as the dates of the ' letters. ' "

Wellington, ■. — i Dearest Lulie,—You asked me in yout letter mail before last to give you an account ol tbe reason of the present terrible depression in New Zealand, and when things are going to improve. As regards the last, I must give it up at once, for my great authority, Edmond,you know, says "no l'ler can,tell"; and when Edmond say* so, of course I feel wisdom Is. staggered, and there is an end of it. In reference to the first question, however, I hare " feund an inexhaustible well of infornution in dew; old dad. You know, dear, when poor mamma died, I . took her place as guide, philosopher, and friend to poor papa. He bad been accustomed to lean on her, '* as all decent married men do on their wives, and ought . to ; although, of course, tbey pretend not to. At any ~ rate, mamma led papa. She had a picture of Una leading the lion—Spencer's Una, you know—hanging in the dining-room, to which she pointed whenever pa felt inclined to be restive. It always had the desired effect of subduing the spirit. I am Una now ; or, as Edmond harshly puts it, bear-leader. ' My rule, however, takes the mild form of coddling, • V and it really is wonderful how readily men take to : coddling. Of ciurse the women like being coddled ; but for one who takes kindly to coddling give mean old gentleman oi sixty-five, who, like papa, has had ■ some roughing in the early days of the Colony, when , he too was young, and who, having amassed a comfortable competency in his old age, "kinder looks" for coddling. Well, of an evening after dinner, and after I have read the evening paper to him, and h&har, ' had bis forty winks in the easiest of easy chairs, I put.. a glass of whisky hot, with a leetle lemon peel, and lots of lump sugar, alongside of pa, and I fill his church-warden—these are the pipes, dear, for respect- > able old gentlemen—with the best, most fragrant tobacco—none of your nasty smelling cigars, the .. fumes of which make your curtains horrid—and when he has fairly started "to gently How a cloud "and ■ sip, I start aUo to pump him on bis early reminis- ■ cen&s, and wind up the yarn as it issues from bis. . lip?. As he gave it to me I give it to you, this history of New Zea and's corse. ' In tbe long gone-bye, when this writer was a thing of joy and gristle, whose chief occupations were alternately to sleep, soream, and suck the snake, of a > feeding-bottle, gold was discovered in Otago in the South Island. We lived then in Dunedin, at that; time little better than a fishing village. Travellers acre 69 great deserts tell us that occasionally a camel • or horse suddenly sickens and dies on tbe march, ana ' that before he falls on the sands there is not a bird to be seen on the horizon. No sooner, however, does - the life-breath cease than in the sky to leeward, far.,, as the eyo can reach, appears a tiny speck, imme*' diately succeeded by another and another and yet another, till tbe atmosphere seems thick with » rapidly approaching mass, and the wayfarer knows the vultures have scent* d the prey and are coming to the feasb. So with the gold discoveries in Otago.. . The news soon spread to Australia, and the.homao vultures—adventurers of every type and-age-flecked-to Dunedin.. Of course, many good men and tine. came also, but the name of the adventurers was legion. . ' Amongst the latter class might have been noncedrhad anyone at that day cared to bother himself about . anyone but himself—a short, stout, dark complexioned man, with a fine expressive eye, a iarge head, particularly well developed at the back. He carried a shaky oirpet bag, containing, as history bath itjan old toothbrush and broken tooth-comb nothing else. He . landed, and excited little or no attention, yet New Zealand's trouble had landed with him. The whole aspect of affairs in Dunedin was of course changed. The fishing village rapidly became a city, for fishers of men became its inhabitants. The new Aladdin's lamp, a goldfield, worked wonders, far in excess of the one in story—everyone was to rejoice in untoU" : wealth; the brightest dream of bungry-eyed avarice was to be excelled, and oh 1 Joy! it was to last for ever. That was an undoubted fact; there was no hesitation on that point The only thing was to adapt • onoself to the singular alteration; and tbe old identities, as they began to be called, felt at first a little out of their element, or, as papa put it, had their breath knocked out of them. . , Man is an imitative animal. Is it Qarlyle' says . that? No, he says men are fools, and I think he is right. If it were not for the women I don't know where we should he. Anyway, the old identities -first. •' - of all let their town sections to the strangers forjUtf much as could be got - sold some at enormous-, profit, c■■ i and then got rid of their moleskin continuations, bins ; , shirts, watertight boots, felt and cabbage-tree hats, . and adopted the garb of tbe strangers. As papa says, ' they very soon felt more at home in the swell dothes • than did the strangers in the new buildings they pufc./.jT up on the high-rented leasehold sections. Theubegan. , a saturnalia of extravagant expenditure. Everyone * of cou'se tried to outvie everyone else; started by those who before then never dreamed of even- • a dogcart; shopkeepers sold their business premises,, n and goodwill to the interesting strangers, generally on. ; a small cash deposit and large lon<-dated- bßß,<and became louder aristocrats. The fnw infanitoi"" as they were termed, vied with the old.identity' in starting full speed on the great race for wealth—, .... or the Bankruptcy Court, as it w'«*W : 1 Who bad sufficient staying power to win this Derby, was a matter of not a moments consideration. ..Th* ■■■>><. good horse Credit was ridden hard by everybody* n Land was purchased on c edit, and banks-wmb, started, all anxious to do business. Whatmote eojua the heart of the adventurer want? Then, also,'thw' fearful and wonderful thing termed society blossomed . suddenly into full and wondrous magnificence: Tlfti _. simple Arcadian village was gone. " Grand Pre" was, : no more. "Neither looks had they to their doors, nor bars to ...: their windows; ■■■?" But their dwellings were open as day, and tne nearts i r of the owners . '.,"'".'■. There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived « abundance." . .) ~li €. ''iOW Alas! all gone, lohabodl Icbabodl Now."flPP* u dockyard people do not know lower dookyardpepnte/J ~-,-,> " Lower dockyard people do not know twespeopleL ~ etc. " The times are changed, and we are changed with __ them," said (be father with a sigh. As I nev«:stj \ those early days of sweet simplicity 1 cannot sighwith, . him; but as the mail is closing I must say good-bye. -, dear, x x x x x x Your ever loving - ', , '. IitJCT. .