COLONIAL LIFE.

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1832, 16 November 1874, Page 2

COLONIAL LIFE.

The following episode,of colonial life is extracted from a letter written by Mr. Holloway to the laborers' Union Chronicle :—" Here is another instance of success. Almost adjoining the Chalmer's land I came across a Mr. Joseph, Hunt, formerly of Great Hollright, in my own county of Oxfordshire. He told me he was working in the village for eight shillings a-week, house Tent to pay, and a wife and'three children tosupport out of ' that. He had heard oF Few, Zealand, and Joe thought within liimself that be

couldn't worse his position by removing to another locality.! fie talked iho .raatlev over to liis wife, and the result was, he ■made up his-mind'to emigrate to New Zealand, to leavo the munificent sum of eight bob a-week, and the glorious prospect, of having a mansion rent-free provided for him when he got too old to work; to leave that glorious old country lauded as the abode of the free nnd the happy, but w.l\ich lias the reputation.of degrading the thousand's of the tilicrsof her soil, a| d keeping them bound dovrh in serfdo^ i ancl slavery as palling as was-eyev fe-.-;.by slaves in a West Xndiaih" plantation, C'in the'Southerh SLRtes 1. jp& began to think, over thcioiihings^andi ho determined,to cast off these shackles, to bravo the dangers of the ocean, and to seek lar away from his owe native home, ia some more favored clime, a home where he could provide i'ct his wife and family the necessaries, if not the comfort s.of life. In the yenr 1856 ho bado farewell to Old Ktigland, anU..after a ,loug voyage he landed safely in -IS"cw Zealand, with 2-^-d in his pocket, with which he began life afresh in the colony.. ■• >te set to work in real earne&t, auclbfiny. asobor, energetic, and perseroring man, determined to get on if possible. .He succeeded beyond his sanguine expectations ; and to-day 1 had the.' pleasure, of visiting him in. his own freehold house, which he has erected upon his own freehold farm of 210 acres. He has given>his children a good education, and I thonglvt within myself, as I safe with my friend at the tea-table, whai would have been Joseph's prospects, haa he remained an agricultural laborer at Great JJollright, in England?, In all probability he would, have been over head and ears in the bakrr's and grocer s debt, without any probability of paying it; with the .'Chipping Norton Union staring him hard in the. face, and the prospect of being buried in a pauper's grave. This is only one of two cases which I have noted down in my diary'pf the marked success v.hich;b.B9 almostintariably followed<,he efforts of industrious, persevering men ; they are not solitary cases."