HOMEWARD BOUND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21804, 19 May 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOMEWARD BOUND

BY' ELSIK K. MOKTON

A CITY OF THE SIXTIES

I stood at the corner of Customs Street and watched the five o'clock tide of humanity surging homeward, city workers rushing for trains, trams and ferry boats, motor-cars hooting, tram gongs banging, newspaper bovs bawling, women with prams fleeing across the intersection (even as the Israelites fled before the pursuing Egyptians), people dashing about in all directions, noise and bustle rising in thunderous crescendo to the quiet heavens above. It was a clear, early winter evening, with a sky of primrose darkening down to night blue behind the massive dome of the Customs building as one looked into the west. A slender sickle moon hung in the sunset haze. The shadows deepened; the first faint stars pricked the afterglow with tiny points of light. Queen Street was 110 longer the main thoroughfare of a busy littlo city, growing bigger as quickly as it can, but an enchanted pathway, leading down through a misty perspective of tall buildings that were white marble palaces, hung with glittering lights that sparkled and twinkled liko a thousand stars in the frosty air. Seventy Years Ago It was Friday evening, and the shops, like the sky, were ablaze with light. And as I watched the crowds, the glittering brightness of earth and sky, the noise and commotion, I thought suddenly of another Queen Street of seventy years ago, the Queen Street known so well to our fathers, with the quiet of eventide settling upon it —an emigrant ship at anchor off the long wharf, the rising tide gently lapping the old-time foreshore that extended even farther up the street beyond where I was standing. How I wished 1 might have stood there in the dusk on some such evening long ago, watching the Maoris launching their canoes so as to get across to Orakei before nightfall, watching the be-whiskered gentlemen and the crinolined ladies strolling homeward to Emily Place, Eden Crescent or Jermyn Street, the shopkeepers standing outside their little stores, the workers crowding to the hotels that stood at every street corner! „ I thought of it all because of an afternoon of searching the files for somo special data which happened to be required. What a picture they called up, those old issues of the Daily Southern Cross, the New Zealander, and the New Zealand Herald of seventy and eighty years ago! Even more interesting than the letterpress were the advertisements, for the newspapers of those early days were extremely limited in scope so far as " news of the day " was concerned. But the advertisements were wonderful! Those were spacious and leisurely days, as indicated by a two-incli advertisement —"For Sale! A silver-mounted meerschaum pipe. On view at the Daily Southern Cross Office!" Warning to Natives A reflection of the troublous timcs that had descended upon the struggling little township was contained in the following notice: " All natives are prohibited from sailing their vessels or rowing their boats or canoes to Auckland during the night time, and all vessels overtaken by .darkness must remain outside the anchorage until morning." One can but hope that the natives read the notice diligently and obediently, or that some kind pakeha friend passed 011 the word that there must be no attempt at night invasion or attack. Probably they did, as the only authentic case of a genuine night alarm seems to have been that historic occasion of the great High Street fire, when the sounding of all the city firebells sent a posse of newly-arrived emigrants rushing to the shelter of the Albert Barracks in terror of their lives. " New Zealand goods for New Zealand folk " would hardly have been an appropriate slogan for the hardy Empire builders of the sixties. Practically every commodity of life, all the foodstuffs, had to be brought from overseas; New Zealand traded with the world's storekeepers, so that we read of flour imported from Valparaiso, eggs in salt from Sydney, butter from New South Wales and even from Ireland, which country also sent delicious hams and bacon. Cattle were imported from Queensland and landed in Judge's Bay. Potatoes, apples and butter came from Hobart Town, oatmeal from Scotland, candles from Belgium. Fresh milk was very scarce and expensive, so that many of early Auckland's business men, the city fathers and mothers of a later day, were reared on homely but nourishing goat's milk. The Bargain Hunters Bargain hunting in the sixties must have been a real thrill. The pioneer ladies did not go in for the fripperies of the present day: underwear of gauzy liinon and georgette; art. silk and interlock; tangee and kiss-proof, perms, and mud-packs—the dear ladies would have been shocked into fainting fits! So in place of the modern advertisements of all these temptations of Eve, wo read of severe and homely things, of clothing built to stand the test of time, of all manner of things jumbled up in the one advertisement: tombstone railings, black tin teapots, camp ovens, snuff boxes,, ladies' cloth boots and goat balmorals (4s 6d), marble chimney-pieces, real Havannah cigars, olives, capers, ribbons, lute strings, artificial flowers, millstones, hats and bonnets, soda crystal, Crimean shirts, figured porcelain, preserved fish, Holloway's pills, saddles, and then at the end of this bewildering list a special word for the ladies. " Twenty-seven bales and eases, comprising fancy prints, grey domestics, winceys, coloured Coburgs, French merinos, alpaca checks, bombazeen. fancy hosiery" (just fancy!) "plush mantles, velvet pile paletots, lawn hats, ladies' burnous, children's mantles, French kid gloves (Is (3d per pair, quite perfect!), stays, including the favourite Princess Alexandra and Beatrice! Crinolines larger and better than ever!" We can imagine the ladies of the sixties flocking down Shortland Street, the main route to the little township from the aristocratic residential section, Jermyn Street, Eden Crescent and Parnoil, the ladies of the sixties in their crinolines and bombazeens, their littlo pork pie hats and coalscuttle bonnets —OII, the glad old days!—on their way to the sale! All gone now, the dear, quaint ladies, our grandmothers and great-grand-mothers, who in the cool of summer eventide used to promenade the Wynyard Pier, listening to the music of the military band from one of the warships that had brought Imperial troops. Gone the old-time shops, the old-time homes, all except one, that still stands, lonely, time-worn, and aloof, at the top of Shortland Street. . . . The blue curtain of night is drawn close; the little moon has set; the workers are all home now, the bright lights have flickered out in darkness. The rush and din are ended for a few hours. The little busy day has slipped away into time's fathomless abyss, as the telling of one more bead on the rosary of eternity. Who will remember this night, the rushing crowds, the din and commotion, when another seventy years have sped?