AN INTERESTING REUNION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13498, 27 May 1907, Page 5

AN INTERESTING REUNION.

MEMORIES OF THE VICTORIAN ; GOLD RUSH. *-] [BY TELEGRAPH.—OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Wellington, Saturday. To-night's Post has the following interesting paragraph: —" On May 24, 1852, 55 years ago, the barque Tory sailed for the Victorian goldfields with a number of New Zealand colonists who had caught the 'yellow fever.' It is stated that of the 130 men who took a passage on that vessel only three are alive to-day, Messrs. J. Putter (Johnsonville), Frank Smith ; (Wellington), and J. Brown (Upper Hutt), whose ages total 217 years. To-day the three veterans met in the city and celebrated the anniversary of the Tory's departure, and incidentally Empire Day, by facing a camera. ' The first' night out,' says Mr. Brown, relating his memories of the voyage, we were caught in a northwest gale, and had it not been that we were fortunate enough to have Bob Jillett (an old whaler) and Captain Muun aboard, in all probability we would have come to grief on Kapit; Island. They directed the master of the barque, and we pulled up under the lee of Kapiti, and remained there four days till the storm passed.. Jillett, at that time, had a lease of Kapiti from the natives, and had a lot of sheep and cattle running on it. We went ashore and Jillet killed a bullock, and we had a jolly good time.' The Tory arrived in Hobson's Bay at the end of three weeks after a favourable passage. ' All the way over,' continues Mr. Brown, 'we lived 'on potatoes and onions, as we could not stand the mouldy biscuits and salt junk.' He picked up Messrs. Smith and Futter at Bendigo, during Christmas time, 1852. They did not meet again till five years later in Wellington when they all returned Home." '

According to the New York Evening Post the British War Office may love, may hate, but it cannot do without Chicago meat.