The Lyttelton Times. THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1875.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 4451, 20 May 1875, Page 2

The Lyttelton Times. THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1875.

To resume the subject of the Handbook—one topic that is as in onrne volubilis aevum (we thank this Napier litterateur for a quotation that ought to become classical) as the Hawke’s Bay “ artesian pipes,” is Captain Cook. His visit to New Zealand , in the last century is a perfect godsend to our “experienced colonists.” We fancy he would have gone more peacefully to his rest in the digestive organs of the South Sea Islanders if he had known how useful his call at New Zealand would be to hard-pressed litterateurs. Another topic that seems to be considered by “ experienced colonists” as perennial in its interests to immigrants is the fact that Captain Cook left some pigs in New Zealand, and that therefore pig-sticking is a favourite sport. TheA follows in : almost every paper another perennial fact that there are no venomous creatures in New. Zealand; although only last week the telegrams contained the report of the destruction of a snake in the North Island. Another inexhaustible topic for all the “ experienced colonists” is the phormium tenax ; they never grow weary of repeating its characteristics, -its abundance and capacity for manufacture. Take away these three or four common wonders and the Handbook is stripped of its romance; the statements become the barest recapitulation of statistics.

But if any province has reason to complain about the manner in which it is represented in the Handbook, Canterbury has it. It has never been our misfortune to criticise such a bald statement of facts before. The only place where the statistical stiffness unbends is in the following passage (page 125) : “The province may be considered as “ divided into three longitudinal zones—-

“the mountain zone, comprising the “whole western part of the northern por“fcions and almost exclusively devoted to “pasturage; the central or plain zone, “comprising almost all the rest of the “province, pastoral in those portions as “yet unbought from the Crown, agrioul- “ tural in the rest; and the peninsular or “eastern zone, partly timber-producing “forest,partly pastoral, partly devoted to “cheesemaking and dairy farming.” This is quite poetical compared with the rest of the paper; the last clause calling the Peninsula a zone, certainly must be hyperbole. Perhaps it was because the writer felt he had for once grown graphic and original, that he got the woodcut of Christchurch placed opposite page 125 ; for the woodcut is supremely bucolic. The scene is what might be taken for a neglected farmyard, with noble cowsheds in the rear. In the foreground are two animals of ambiguous species (probably a cross between short-wool sheep and Captain Cook’s pigs; we hope, if it were for aesthetic considerations alone, the species is extinct like the moa), one reclining, the other ill with the “ staggers.” But the artist is not merely a landscape painter; he introduces figures. Near the ambiguous animals are two as ambiguous human beings, probably the owners or guardians of the animals; while far in the rear are what one would take to be chimney-sweeps; but what their use can be in this arcadia probably only the artist or the “ experienced colonist ” could tell. We believe the picture was intended to represent Cathedral Square ten years ago. We did not know the Handbook was also devoted to antiquarian researches. Perhaps the purpose of inserting the picture and calling it Christchurch, was to impress English farmers in England with the notion that they might combine in Canterbury town and country life; in fact, that they might take farms in the middle of the city.; But there is something inexpressibly ludicrous in talking throughout the article of the city of Christchurch, and then giving two pig-like sheep, a grassfield, a few trees, and a few houses that look like cowsheds, as the picture of Christchurch. The only other Christchurch picture that is given is that everlasting moa skeleton, with the dwarfish skinclad Maori staring up at it. If there is anything in the book that the likely immigrant will take impressions from, it will be from the pictures; and the impression he will be sure to form of Christchurch will be of a village where the bush is not all cut down yet, where farms are let in the middle of it, where cowsheds are the most presentable edifices, where pigs or sheep, or animals ■that are both, may wander at ease in the principal streets, and where Maoris and pjoaa are the chief objects of interest, and perhaps the staple of commerce il not of food.

We have left ourselves little space to criticise the article accompanying these works of art; all we need say is that it is in thorough keeping with them. But we should like to call the attention of the Provincial Secretary to one thing. The “experienced colonist” who writes the article, and is also called Mr W. M. Mpkell in the index, devotes one-fourth of his space to glorifying the educational and charitable advantages of Canterbury; it is the only piece of the article that approaches to anything that might be called in the. most distant way, enthusiasm. If the article is to attract any immigrants at all it will be this piece that will, do it; but if the present attack of the . Provincial Secretary on the educational and charitable institutions be successful this piece of the article will he utterly falsified; labourers will come to a province in which education will be to them a burden instead of an attraction, and charity a mere farce played by philanthropists. We beseech the Provincial Secretary not to stultify this “experienced colonist,” Mr W. M. Maskell, and save this only successful piece of pleading for the province from being made utterly false.