AN APPRECIATION.

Timaru Herald, Volume CVII, Issue 16446, 18 January 1918, Page 5

AN APPRECIATION.

I'RF. LATE MR ALEXANDER SUTHERLAND.. (Contributed.) On the last day ox the old year there was laid to rest in the Pleasant Point cemetery one of the best known of the old-time settlers of South Canterbury, Mr Alexander of Sutherland^. Better known to his intimates of the 'sixtifcn, 'seventies, and 'eighties as "Sandy, ' Mr Sutherland was a Highland Celt who felt the call of Now Zealand in 1862, and landed in Timaru by the ship Echunga, in company with his wife and a numerous band of Slots who have lefb their indelible mark in our sub-province.* Like the great majority of the incoming Empire builders whose only capital was ambition and a sound constitution, the Sutherlands turned their hands to the work which lay nearest to them, and ,Mr Sutherland experienced the usual .vicissitudes of the first-comers, from I working on Sheath's Opawa station to helping to break up the suburban dis- ] trict of Sandietown, in Timaru, which was named after him. 'Eventually in, 1867 the Sutherlands bought land from the Crown five miles inland from Pleasant Point, that district now bearing their name, and thev showed their love for the old Highland glens by naming their homestead "Bailechinch," meaning "the house or home ou the hill." It was here at "the home on the hill," that Alexander Sutherland and his wife gave free play to that trait which has endeared them to hundreds of people resident upon and travelling along, the main road leading into the hack country. The home was originally represented bv a sod house, in the building of which Mrs Sutherland assisted* her husband by handing him up the sods, but later, when the farm could afford it, a fine house in stone took shape, and it is tolerably certain that this house has exuded more hospitality to the square inch than any other house in South Canterbury. Parson, swagger, crover and neighbour, all were made equally welcome by the Sutherlands. who possessed that somewhat rare characteristic, beloved of mankind in the mass, of making absolutely no different in tha hospitality shown to the man of position and that to the swagger off the road. Indeed the writer has heard it often remarked! that the greatest affront one could put upon the Sutherlands was to pass their place without calling. Sandy Sutherland! Sandy Sutherland! you were « Highland born hopefulist who swamped your own •troubles by thinking of and helping others in trouble —one who thought that the irain plank in any Christian's raft was kind-m*., .and that that kindness was most brightly represented in openhtanded hospitality. Lost, lost to tho world is your inexhaustible store of Gaelic soufis and Sutberlandshire folk lore. Fading,-fading, is your race and generation.—T.D.E.