SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS OF COLONIAL LIFE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21544, 16 January 1932, Page 3

SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS OF COLONIAL LIFE

Written for the Otago Daily Times,

By Up Against It. 11. Let us get on to the trail again. I tendered my resignation at the plum duff, rice pudding, roast beef, and blushing steak emporium in Wellington and got a vacant job in Molesworth street at a palace of Bacchus, on the opposite side of the street to Parliament Buildings, where the members of the Coalition Party hold down the jobs and make 10 per cent, cuts, and are anxious to sacrifice everything for these isles and the toiler. It was a good job, being brimful of work. I was .“boots, day and night porter, dining room waiter, and general rouseabout, and had to serve out the glass that cheered. Some lady arrived from nowhere in particular, and threatened to buy the hotel right out and spoke of great wealth. I was impressed, but she was a false alarm, and never had the price of a trip to Port Chalmers or of a shingle, and deceived everybody but the police. Funny old world! I like to be “had” sometimes, and take it as a prize joke, but there is the genuine Eve just the same. Christiana was a paying guest at this particular ale and pony-shandy fountain. I had to wait on her at table. She was really nice and I was really lonely, so I. used to wait for her down by the G.P.O. ns well, and she was delightful company. We went for long walks around the harbour front away out Oriental Bay, Kilbirnie, and elsewhere, but later on I walked on to a Union liner and steamed away to Christchurch, the city of the flowing Avon, weeping willows, chiming church bells, beautiful parks, and a high-grade museum. Board and residence cost 12s 6d a we6k there, as I got a job at the Belfast Freezing Works. Wages were lower than now, but meat was cheap. When the busy season got slack I landed a position as second porter in the Christchurch Hospital, and witnessed operations at times. Ugh! I don’t think I could face it now, and have witnessed a surgeon putting his hand into a wound in the thigh of a casualty, up past his wrist, and all sorts of gruesome rights, but you get used to it. There was a Matron Maude as head of the staff in my time, and she was as well known in Christchurch as the late Mr Burns’s statue is in Dunedin, and this lady was absolutely one of the best. There was a Dr Fenwick on the staff. He is in practice there yet, and is an authority on the subject I introduced a while back—cancer—and held his end up in the Big War and also the Boer madness. Christchurch is all right, but in time I landed in a place by name Dunedin, where the people do not walk the streets in plaid or kilts, nor play the bagpipes at midnight and before breakfast, or devour haggis and burgoo, nor are they all Scotch, ye ken; but it is the same as elsewhere. I have heard a good many jokes about places and people. Dunedin has a reputation of being a mean city. Ye gods! I need not comment, except to state that it is a crime for such an idea to exist at all. In the good and bad old days Dunedin was a lively city, and was full of dash and life; hotels being opened till long after the shades of night had fallen; even though the old trams were dragged around by horses, things seemed to hum, especially when. Bland Holt’s Dramatic Company showed down with such thrillers as “ Alone in London,” “ New Babylon,” “ The White Heather,” and Mr Holt walked the city with his famous bulldog at his heels. Those were the days, my masters, of real thrill, and beat the present-day movies to a frazzle, with real, live flesh-and-blood actors and actresses before the footlights. How about Hugo’s. Buffalo Minstrels? with Charles and Will Hugo, Priscilla Verne, and the famous old final farce, “ Thomson’s, Dead,” not forgetting the grand opening curtain-raisers with burnt-cork comedians on the corners of the stage. Lovely! I understand that Mr Holt was a High School boy here. Mary Pickford was here years ago. I never met her, but met our new Governor, his Excellency Lord Bledisloe, some time ago. Strange to relate, he never noticed me. Just as well, maybe. I was out of good cigars at the time, and badly required a shave, and out of ready cash. His Lordship was passing from High street into George street, accompanied by his A.D.C. I would, from appearances call him a genial sort and a good aport, although he has not had the pleasure of dining with me so far as I can remember. I wouldn’t mind holding his job for a couple of years till the slump passed, anyhow, although he is in the salary cut. I slogged into all sorts of jobs here years ago, and even inserted myself into an old white starched robe with high collar to match and arrived at the office at 8 a.m. punctually, well groomed, and nearly frozen with the cold all day, as it was mid-winter, but later struck a position as day porter in the old Sussex Hotel on the 2s 6d side of George street. Ten shillings a week was the honorarium, and hop off the mark at 5 a.m.; clean people’s boots, scrub floors, do the front bar out, polish the big brass railing outside, and help the lady in the kitchen when extra busy. Plenty of food and plenty of good fun with the girlies on the staff. What more do you want? and a good mistress to work for. Then I got on the staff of a travelling photographer taking pictures of city houses. I was advance representative, and marked all houses to be photographed. Great job! Secured a temporary position in Gridiron Hotel at race time. Any one remember the old Spanish Restaurant near there, and the Old Times eating establishment? All meals sixpence, and good at that. Maclaggan street had a real good grazing restaurant, and there were other streets in the nimble sixpenny catagory. Sweet old days, honestly, but when the summer came again I palled up with a mate and we got our swags together, setting sail along Cargill road out to Caversham, then across the hill to Burnside and Green Island, right away down this island, camping out under the thousands of stars, away from the struggling crowd, boiling the billy, with no landlord waiting for hie rent, out into the glory of freedom of the road and bush, picking up jobs here and there, playing the mouth organ, singing in tune with the birds and Nature. Never look down on the man who . carries Matilda. He is happier, maybe, than you are. If you know how, it’s a great life if you have a few bob in the exchequer. We picked up a harvest, made cash, separated. Then I sailed away from the Bluff on a Union liner in good weather, and it’s good to feel the decks trembling with the vibration of the engines, and watch the coast fading out of sight in the twilight, and its farewell for years to good old New Zealand, the land of the Maori and the moa; but it’s bad when the liner starts to pound up against the storm-tossed seas and night settles down over things. You locate the address of the lifebelts and feel queer-like as she rushes ahead, up—up, then down—down—down —up again—seems to atop and ship a big, green sea. Ugh! Have you ever been properly seasick? I mean the real thing. It’s homicidal, and worse, one imagines, than a 40 per cent, cut in wages. I would rather be hungry or wealthy. I think everybody was squeamish on this occasion. They . reckoned we had run into the tail end of a hurricane. Well, if that was the latter portion, I should not care to join up with the real business end of it. Was I frightened? Don't ask me! We know the danger and are human. A good night to say your prayers . and handle your rosary. They were driving her at less than half-speed, just holding her head to the raging seas ahead and around us. The birds of the sea scream out as if in fiendish mockery, there is a clatter of things movable, the hoarse calling of muffled commands; peal upon pea) of thunder of a deafening nature; flashes of lightning; the hissing and roaring of the seas as at times the propeller races along clear of the ocean; but it eased down by degrees, and the liner eventually came on to an even keel, then ahead they scut her at top, making up for lost time, with roaring furnaces, black, grimy smoke pouring from the funnel as halfnaked firemen restoked the furnaces; then everybody tries to get happy as the great, still moon seems to rise out of the heart of the ocean, and the ship glides through a trail of gold on a placid sea. We steamed into Hobart on a harbour glistening like polished steel on a morning that was a gift from the gods, the sun shining brightly, and I walked on to Tasmania to find that grapes were sold at 3d per lb on the highway at Van Dieman’s Land. Lovely climate! Good place for the workers to retire to after they make their pile. I did not make a fortune in “Tassy,” but it is a quaint, easy-going place, which I really

liked. Some queer - looking old buildings to be seen those days; old-fashioned hotels such as the Lord Nelson near the harbour front, but things must have changed since then. Met some queer cards in Hobart, including a real live burglar. He proposed robbing a number of yachts in the harbour, then going up country, and returning later. Quite interesting, especially when he explained to me all about prison life, of which he had partaken quite a large share. Is there such a thing-as a criminal who is clever? They are prize cranks. I met this gentleman in a boarding hostel, and did not accept his kind invitation. It was a novel proposition, nevertheless. The sea was crystal clear, and I could see the form of a woman floating face upwards, and the figure seemed to be surrounded with a sort of gauze material. Being strong at swimming, I made right out to what seemed someone in death, and circled around her, then swam in close, when I was conscious of a desperate struggle, but held on. When the struggle ceased, I could distinctly feel her form closely pressed to mine as if she was subconsciously aware of being in safe arms, and I got my charge ashore, and rushed about desperately trying to obtain assistance, which seemed impossible, until I got an officer of the law. Dreams are strange things, and this is the most vivid one ever I had, and it was quite recently. I awoke shaking all over; showing how the mind works while we sleep. There is such a thing as sleeping clairvoyance, as I dreamt of a fire and it happened exactly as I had visualised it while asleep. The occult side of things is a life’s study in itself, but you are regarded as a sort of mystic dreamer if one mentions these things, and silence is often golden in these matters, but telepathy and the power to pull results by the power of the human mental powers are proved scientific facts, and I positively know we can solve the cancer problem. A few years ago the world concentrated on wholesale butchery and the taking of life by nations. We all want to concentrate to save life now so far as cancer gpes, as it is claiming its thousands of victims, and I again (at the risk of being called a bore) advocate a combined effort throughout the world. I personally prove a scientific fact before writing about it. By abstaining from food for certain periods we can get over certain ills and get a new grip on life. It is not what the other fellow wrote about or told me, but I went through it myself to solve the riddle. Most of us eat too much food, and the starving crowd eat too little, so there you are. I ask no one to believe it, but it is natural law. We only receive less than nine shillings per week now on relief work. When paid at the Town Hall I become real extravagant and reckless. I dined out that evening, where the tariff is very reasonable; the service just perfect; the menu high grade; and the attendant waitress an artist at her job, also shingled, and chic, and wearing a variation of pretty gowns that appeal to me.

I want the . nice things of life, and don’t mind doing a perish for a time in order to get them. If I don’t cross the Great Divide this year I am going to change things somehow. My mind is set on it. Ain’t it deadly to be hard-up? “My oath! ” as they say in Australia and Mosgiel!