LOCAL NEWS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume I, Issue 34, 13 April 1866, Page 2

LOCAL NEWS.

NELSON HOP-GARDENS. Yesterday, Messrs. Hooper, Dodson, and Aitken, treated the persons who had beea engaged in hop gathering in their grounds, during the past season, to a tea, on the occasion of their beiug paid their wages. It is the custom to give the work-people counters to represent the amount of money due to them from time to time, which are presented and honored at the end of the season. As stated in a former article on this interesting industry, the hops are gathered by women and children, who earn a good deal of money in this way, which must be a pleasing one of adding to the domestic income, seeing that the occupation is neither laborious nor unhealthy. There must have been more than a hundred men, womeu and children at the reunion yesterday, the male portion of the assembly having come to keep their relatives in countenance and partake of the excellent spread provided for them by the proprietors of the hop-gardens. After tea was over, various amusements were entered into with great zest, and the pleasing spectacle was presented of employer and employed meeting on common ground, and sharing in the recreations with which it was considered proper to characterise the last meeting of the season. It was remarked that the hop-gatherers of Nelson showed a striking contrast to those of the old country. In England hops are mostly gathered by the "finest pisautiy in the world," who travel hundreds of miles to earn the small pittance which the periodical industry affords them. Iu Nelson the hop-gatherers are a well to do class of people, the income derived from the work enabling the women to supplemeut the incomes of their husbands, and improve the appearance of themselves and children. The good feeling existing between the proprietors of the hop-gardens and the persons employed in them, as shown by the meeting of yesterday, is not one of the least interesting features attending the local industry to which we have already called the attention of our readers.