LATE ALF SMITH.

Grey River Argus, 30 March 1926, Page 8

LATE ALF SMITH.

A LINK WITH TILE PAST. (By an Tnangahua Admirer). “Is Alf Smith really dead?” This is a question that many humans, from Collingw’ood to Gillespie’s Beach, will nut to themselves, and with feelings ol dismay must reluctantly realise that the sad nows is only 100 true. Not that Alf was any more human than some more of us might be, but that Mother Nature seemed to have allotted to him a place on this earthly sphere under the tenure of a renewable lease. For drovers have come, and drovers have gone, but. Alf Smith here remained as time rolled on; but he has gone to that land where we all must go—to that bourn from whence no traveller can return. And he certainly did not go preparatory t 0 the expiration of his lease, for ho ran the last yard of the last lap of his life, and finished up bravely and boldly. Alf was one of the energetic typo, and was ever on the qui vive in the furtherance of his business, and, to the many who knew him, his life and death should tend to show that leisure and longevity are not figs off the same tree. Alf Smith was certainly a West Coast pioneer of the first rank, in so far as antiquity entitled him to that distinction, and his life has been in tin age of our civilisation during which many links have been added to the chain of evolution, and not least—gleaning from some of Alt’s recountings—in the direction of goods delivery. In those weird, romantic days of the Golden West Coast, the hero of my narrative followed the avocation of a journeyman butcher, and it was in this capacity, that the tenacious countenance and resonant voice of the late Alf Smith first linked up with the memory of the writer, at its greatest stretch. The modus operandi in respect of Alf.’s business in, the sixties and early seventies, was to purchase the fat stock in the North Island, and have them sailed to the Buller (Westport) where dispensation commenced tn his hurly-burly customers. It is Mere that Alf is credited with having taken the life of the first ox which was slain for human consumption on the Buller gold-field—though I believe that Hokitika claims priority in the “gilt” ' of spilling the first, bovine blood on the historic W.est Coast. From this receiving store, Alf would have his goods —mostly jumbneks for the first few years —conveyed by man power boat to > Christie r s (the where lie had his main depot. From here, he

travelled the animals, with the co-op-eration of his dogs, in small mobs to the different El Dorados throughout the Inangahua. watershed. He would usually travel equipped with his kit of tools, and, after slaughtering, would hang a few carcases of mutton to the trees nearest to the main points of consumption, and. after hanging up the last sheep of thq drive, he would proceed to the first kill and proceed cut up and dispense the goods to the satisfaction of the busy diggers’ carnivorous appetites. The next performance, of course, was the collecting of accounts, which had a quaintness a,bout it even more unique than the method of delivering the goods. The raw material from the claim being the chief medium of exchange in thn.se days,.some of the more canny customers would weigh out the gold dust to the lust grain, whilst some of the less exact members of the great wildwoods army often resorted to the measurement system of squaring accounts, thereby deleting the usual set of gold scales "from their household equipment. Tins prompts me to relate at least one more of Alt’s memoirs in connection with (ho settlement of accounts in those parly days, per medium of the gold currency, though one which nearly reaches the limit of the .writer’s credibility. This was when the whole butcher shop called at a certain claim which was manned by a trio of good customers, the head butcher intimating that he required some of the necessary wherewith to replenish his stock. “Very well,” came the response, “you can go into the hut as you go down. You will find last week’s wash-up in the tea-billy. Take your share out of it, and take n few ounces down to the storekeeper, if you don’t mind.” So said Peter who was the party’s spokesman. “And where might 1 find the scales?” queried the tradesman. “We have none; we use a pepper tin,” replied Peter. “But I prefer to weigh it,” said the butcher. “Well, then, where.’s the scales you weigh the meat with?’’ “I got them, but they’re 200 lb stillards and 3 ounces will more than square my account.” “All’s well for that,” said Peter. “You could not weigh a leg of mutton on a gold scale, but what’s to prevent you from weighing a bit of gold on a meat scale?” (Incidentally is there any' chance of our seeing history repeating itself in the above manner, when some of our local traders extend their activities to the Alexander Goldfield?)

Thus far we have briefly narrated some of the latejVlf Smith’s experienccs as an antiquarian tradesman on the goldfields, and it was about the medieval periqd of those palmy days—• when the first roads were opened—that Alf relinquished his business as a purveyor of beef and .mutton, and engaged himself in the pursuit of a dealer and drover, buying and selling on the hoof. With the exception of a few intermissions, lie plied this calling with unrelenting energy until after the sun went down on March Btb, 1926, when the ambassador of that omnipotent' force which finally terminates nil earthly things, invaded his residence in the Valley of Thorpe, Nelson, and commanded him to shuffle off this mortal eoil—To rest! To sleep! To sleep, and never wake again! And I believe that during the final flickerings of his last inch of taper, Alf was to be seen bargaining for a mob, and, in his usual characteristic manner, suggesting to the vendor that “we’ll split the difference. ” No more familiar figure, or widely known mortal, ever travelled the West Coast Ronds, or Is ever likely to, under the regime of our present civilisation, than the same Alf Smith, and, being such a regular attendant at the different saleyards throughout his circuit over such a' long stretch of years, it would be no matter for surprise to find some of our auctioneers, after mounting the rostrum, unconsciously delaying the proceedings and measuring tinje with anxious eves for the appearance of.“ Father Smith.” But only to linger, and watch in vain, For Aff will never return again! Farcw,ell old friend! With a’fbur kind regards, We leave yon to the spirits and your fate; And trust yott are drafting in other yards, Where Hie Good. Shepherd ever Iteops tlsj gflle!.