OLD IDENTIANA.

Otago Witness, Issue 1891, 1 May 1890, Page 32

OLD IDENTIANA.

-o REMINISCENCES OF OTAGO. 11.

The old colonists who founded the settlement of Otago were, as everybody knows, Scotchmen of the Free Kirk persuasion, and there can be no doubt that with all their many sterling good qualities, so well fitting them for pioneers in a new country, they were not free from a certain narrowmindedness in religious matters, and a certain strong disposition to look upon anyone who was not a countryman and of their own way of thinking a3 an intruder whose presence was not wanted in Otago. This feeling, however, did not of course apply to all the members of the community, and by 1854 it was beginning to wear off. The old Free Kirk settlers might in many points be compared to the Puritans, those sturdy sectarians, the " Pilgrim Fathers," who left their native land to form a home in the " wilderness " of America, in order that they might enjoy the privilege of worshipping in their own way. It is not difficult to imagine that a voyage in a ship bringing out the first detachment of such a colony might not be too pleasant to those who did not feel quite so enthusiastic as the majority. I knew a sailor once who had served several years in a mission ship, and he used to dilate upon the good fare and the good times the crew had, and above all the civil way in which they were asked to do this, that, or the other thing ; but he said he had to leave after a while because all the days were Sundays. " Sunday," said he, "is the best day of the week aboard ship, but we do not like all the days to be Sundays." There were conveniences, too, such as are apt to be " better missed than found." The ship bringing out the nucleus of a new colony contains not only the spiritual heads, but the temporal authorities, and if any two people quarrel there is ready at hand all the conveniences of a tribunal temporal or ecclesiastical, and a newspaper reporter to dish up a spicy account of the proceedings ; and the worst of it is there is no getting away from the opponent. I heard a good story once of what happened to a man in such a ship. Let me see, I forget the name of the ship, but I think it must have been one of the pilgrim vessels in the early period of American colonisation. The bulk of the passengers were all Puritans of the strictest sect, and they had all the material, spiritual, legal and otherwise, wherewith to found a colony in the wilderness, but there happened by some chance to be amongst' them a young gentleman and his wife, who, although i'rom the right part of the country, turned out most unexpectedly to be of a different and much less serious way of thinking. This alone was not calcu-

lated to make the young couple favourites, but when, addfed to' it,' the young gentleman was very free and jovial in" his' manners, and ' the young lady was both very pretty aud very well dressed, as well as very lively and gay,' things began to look serious. By-and-bye the two Cnfortnnate people were caught yawning at the somewhat long and frequent prayers, and it began to be whispered that their conduct was so light and frivolous that they could scarcely be respectable. Then it transpired that no one knew the lady's family, and by degrees skirts were drawn aside, and she was allowed plenty of room at table, till one day a good old dame of the true faith suggested that a sight of Mrs ! 's marriage lices would be very agreeable, and the suggestion being taken up by the elders, Mr was requested in the most delicate manner just to allow the " ministers " to see what they were like. Now it happened, unfortunately, that these young people had not furnished themselves with such evidence^ never dreaming such a thing would be necessary j but, as everybody I knows, no Puritan lady ever goes without her " lines/ 1 ready to produce on the slightest chance of occasion arising. The excuse was not credited, and when dinner time came the news had spread, and the ladies refused to sit down with " the creature f " Here was a nice scrape to be in ! A court was called to sit upon the case at once, and it was decided that the couple should either go through the ceremony of marriage or be forcibly separated during the voyage, and until legal evidence of their marriage could be procured. Thegentleman found himself forced either to put up with injustice and ill-usage, without the satisfaction of appeal at the end of the voyage, or to marry his own wife, thereby acknowledging that she was not his wife before. It was an extraordinary case, and perhaps a unique one, of a man committing bigamy with his own wife ; but there was no help for it, and this unfortunate man married his wife for the second and last (it is to be hoped) time, under protest. In this case, where everything was set right as soon as time permitted, perhaps there was not much ultimate harm done, but it serves to show to what an extent sectarian discipline may be carried, and it might have been a very difficult and expensive process to procure a divorce had the double married parties ever desired such an undesirable thing. Old Otago.