HAPPY DAYS OF LONG AGO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19068, 13 July 1925, Page 10

HAPPY DAYS OF LONG AGO.

«IN THAT FERN-TREE WHARE" SUCCESSOR TO A MUD HUT. In ah address given before tho Early Settlers' Association in Wellington last week Sir Thomas MacKonzio said that his first introduction to Wellington was in 1873, when ho visited his brother in the Hutt Valley and afterwards joined him on a survey party in the Rangitikei. Ho was, he considered, ono of tho first white men to put an axe to that great stretch of country which extended to Taihape and further. His first acquaintance with New Zealand was earlier than that, his father having come, to New Zealand in 1858. "Our first house was not such as is demanded by every young person getting married in these days, "said Sir Thomas. "Our first homo was a mud hut, and afterwards a fern-tree whare of three rooms. And I have heard my mother say that the happiest days of her life wore thoso spent in that fern-tree house." Ho had gono to school in a little mud school five miles away—tho first school built in Otago. Sir Thomas mentioned that a similar association to that in Wellington existed in Dunedin. He pointed out that Otago was settled by the Presbyterian Church and Canterbury by the Church of England, as tho result of the Oxford movement. "I am not sure that Wellington or Auckland wore settled by people of particular religious tendencies," ho said, "which probably explains why they had flourished so considerably." (Laughter.) In Otago, he said, the landing was celebrated by a religiou* service, in Christchurch by a ball, which indicated the difference between the two nationalities.