Cattle and Hades, or Canada As It Is. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2689, 27 September 1905, Page 24

Cattle and Hades, or Canada As It Is. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — A "cow-puncher" (cowboy) down fromwhere I am — or up, if you are on the Atlantic, in Alberta, the Great North-west Territory, with emphasises on the word "great" if you would give pleasure to the boomers — was asked, "What do you grow here in the Wast?" Well might the question be asked. Tb.9 reply was, "Cattle and hell." It may "b^true that evil in many forms grow with su™ a coarse life, and cattle of a very coar3c character grow upon grass to be likened to iron wire. You might sole boots with some beefsteaks I have seen after cooking. The animal is a big, sillylooking beast, neither bufralo nor cow. But other forms of torment go to mak6 hell among them — an acid that eats the akin off your hands unless covered by gloves, and even joiners and pick and shovel men have to wear gloves. This acid covers ths prairie like hoarfrost. Everything is salt, water included. Then a form of vermin called go2>her, the size of a large rat and the colour oi a rabbit, have their warrens often not a yard apart, the whole earth being undermined, and crops are often cleared as by fire. But they have fire, 100, sweeping over large areas, every settler requiring a wide border ploughed around his lot. Even then the destructions spells ruin to hundreds. Then they have hail right in the height of summer. I travelled in a train in July, when the thek glass of the engine lamp was broken, great hailstones like shingle falling. Crops are battered out of sight, and the ruined farmer is in despair. In the month of June 1 experienced a withering blizzard. The hardened snow was driven through into the houses. No idea, oan be formed of thia form of torment unless it is experienced. There is an outcry against special favours shown to hungry Russians. "I/et them all come!" Every statesman knows it's no white man's home, no Englishman's home. Some miserable creatures get stuck, and cry it up in the hope of seeing a new corner with some money to buy him out. Only such ever write testimonials in praise of the country. Besides, if you can get a dupe, he is worth from 7s to 20s a head to you. That is even as high a price as the British army pays its recruiting sergeants. There ore other torments which evolve in abundance. You must light lamps, and guard young cattle, and particularly sheep, all night. Hail, rain, or pnow — when the snrrv is anywhere from sft to 15ft deep. Then Wie wolf and mountain

lion make their all too numerous visits. The latter is a savage brute. Some enakea are harmless, while others are very harmful. Both are in the Rockies and the foothills, and in British Columbia they are abundant. Then the cowboy meant that everything was a h of a price living far away, 50_ or 100 miles, from a store. To think of any man leaving Australia or New Zealand for such a country as Canada, where everybody is too poor to hire his labour, where hundreds are stranded, and relief homes in every district, all of which shows how necessary it is that the truth should be told! But how soon it is all forgotten. How the paper is read and then put into the stove, and your children repeat the same mad acts. One old lady on board the Aorangi amused most passengers because she was so isilent — an old Irish girl from Sydney, New South Wales. She looked over the side of the boat the whole three weeks. At Honolulu she refused to go ashore, because she saw the American flag and noted black men. Wlien she reached Vancouver, where her own kind of people liv&d vinder the British flag, she saw swarms ■ of Chinese and Japanese, and she again re- j fused to go ashore — indeed, Canada is a foreign land to Britishers. So the' old lady thought, for she rebooked for Sydney. Wo thought her odd, but by the time we had been swindled right and left and lost a lq£ ■of money and gained nothing but pain, we concluded the old lady was the only wise passenger. Woe to those -who land and are surrounded by the sharks, styled "real estat-j agents." Failures in every walk of life, they know the pitfalls, and guide the steps of those who cannot know till they fall in. True, Canada grows cattle and h , a place lo be shunned by decent, honest, simpleminded Britishers ; and let it be understood the shark of sharks is the renegade Englishmen and the smart American and "Americanised" Canadian. "Oh, heat, dry up my sinews!!" is a prayer sure of answer in Canada. People cry out against the heat of Australia: it is cool in comparison with the open, barrel', treeless prairie of Canada. There every step you make stirs millions of sandflies, for the country is sand a sand desert much of it. Mosquitoes! New Zealand doesn't know them compared with the prairie of Canada. Believe me, it needs all the booming it is gelting. Those who know it are flocking to the townia, und allowing distance to lend enchantment to the far-away, restless speculator. Do you think of exchanging New Zealand for Canada? Don't, is the advice of a Gbeymouth (N.Z.) Tkadesmam;