A RETROSPECT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6977, 15 December 1900, Page 6

A RETROSPECT.

FIFTY YEARS AGO

GLIMPSES 6F THE PAST.

OLD-TIME ASSOCIATIONS.

(By R. H.P.,Ealing.)

Fifty years ! Who can realise the cost, in mental anxiety, ceaseless devotion, untiring love, disappointment and remorse, care, love and success,' in tha passage of tbose fifty years? Every sort of intelligence, every good quality, with energy and perseverance, every bad quality and! passion, has had its effects on posterity, in its happy homes and prosperous province. Therein, is contained the total record of our fifty yeara.

Nearly fifty years <nigo I walked from the vessel to the top of the Bridle Path; (on a' hot day), to get a bird's eye view of our future home, and took a seat on that large clump of rocks, about a quarter of a male off to the left. I sab and wondered. The dreary miles of endless -tussock, the distant hills, and tihe little, winding stream, with its •muddy mouth, not large enough to bs useful — out of that wo had to makc^oiir homes and live. After half-an-hour's reverie, I jumped up and said, " My boy, you have got your work cut out." But I was only in my teens, and after another half-hour's contemplation of existing things and -capabilities (there. was not a. bouse in Ghristchurch,'except the old Land Office, to break the direairy monotony of the view), I jumped up and said, " Go, eat and live, you must progress

or die."

Now we hitve been able to carry out those feelings. We have conquered me Plains, and have made thousands of happy and prosperous homes, out -of tie dreary waste we had before us, not by any tickling process, ' go glibly described by a correspondent the other day, but % the best of power, . tie most finished implements, and the indomitable perseverance and energy of the AngloSaxon. We have changed our wilderness into a. thriving field; we have improved- our flocks and herds as wo progressed ; amd we have, more than lived, we have been able, in .our success, to help hundreds of thousands of our poorer brothers and sisters at Home to get some ojf the necessaries awd comforts /■■of. life, that,, till .then; icqiild never ; hajve entered into their most sanguine dreams ;'- and \' : there is some' of tike pleasitta of bur%ucci&ss. -

But our whole time was not spent in the dreary monotony of labour. Out whole .progress could never have eventuated without those pleasures, amusements, , and. sports so dear to the true-born Briton. Who of those who were there to see will ever forget our first anniversary sport® at Hagley BaTk, in '51; where, alter the few horses we- had had cried' enough, a Maori' race was won^by George Williams (a Rapaki Maori), in costume, I should think, more conspicuous than comfortable, composed principally of a belltopper and a pair of blight spurs on his bare feet. And then, that such good-sport should not end, the carters of Ghristchurch (shutting their eyes ti> ring bone and curbs) raced their cart horses against each, other (some of them worth a hundred pounds) for little more than 'just the sport. , But just so is the Britisher built, and the wrestling was gone into with all tie pleasure of youth, between the aristocrat and the- plebean, one ' particular one (the Master of Waimate, known ; long in South Canterbury as " The Lion of the South)," offering, with pleasure, to make good all shirts (and the tearing was great) in the morning, if they would only come on and have it cut. , A cricket match was also played there thai day, and who will ever forget our first anniversary ball, in the Crystal. Palace, opposite the Golden Fleece Hotel, where Slipper- was provided, ami a covered way was erected from it to the ballroom across Colombo Street? We had only a piano for our .music, .but the dresses and the dancing were ail that could ba desired. Wo danced in those days with some spirit, a<nd the sun had long been sinning brightly before our first Public Bail had ceased to exist. I could tell you of many hospitable, kind people, -who tried, as far as. possible, to break the monotony of colonial life, but I must stop at names, and also have mercy on. your space. ',

Soon after we Lad the regatta, at Lyttelton, on Jjfin. 1, most likely to be remembered for its energetic Maori crews, in their races, and for its realistic Maori war dance, by men and women in the evening. I should think there were nearly a hundred, who worked themselves up into such a pitch of excitement in their dance, as to ba perfectly dangerous, and gave Mr Godlcy ten minutes of very grave fear. The men were charging up and down the street .with, their spears like perfect maniacs, and it was some time before they became quiot. Mr Godltjy said that no war dance should be danced again, and no real war dance has been danced in Canterbury since. When I say " real war dance," I mean the men with their spears, with the proper number of women, with their dishevelled 'hair, beating their naked breasts, and working themselves into a feeling of madness, and with their wild guttural exclamations. It made me feel that I was looking on a real war dance I should never see again. •

Shortly after that we had the Godley Breakfast, in a largo tent on. Hagley Park, given to Mr Godley on the occasion of Ins leaving the province. It -will ever be remem-

bered by its one speech (so completely eclipsing all the others, and 'its feeling " farewell.".

Bub. I begin to think that although your ! progress has been very great, from the little house in Lytteltdn. I knew well in '51 (with Mr Birch, your Editor), to your aristocratic surroundings in Gloucester Street of to-day, ' you still could nob give me space to say all I thought I could have written when I began n.boufe the things that/have led up to (i and done so much to push on and assist, our progress — the first mills ; the first steam engines, thought so little of to-day, but what important factors nearly fifty years ago . in assisting our progress ; our jockey clubs ; our horses, from old Necromancer, of nearly fifty years ago, through the Wellington Tamerlane and Johnnie Heke, and the Nelson Wet-rail, Waimea, Revoke, and Lady : bird, to our Carbine^ Multiform and Advance of to-day ; and our Agricultural and Pastoral Association, from the first Fanners' Club formed in Lytteltqn, with Mr Bridge, as its Chairman, to its" magnificent position developed to-day. ., „ , But I.mujst. cease. Hark, to the voices of girls of fifty year's ago, of mothers- and grandmothers of to-day. What are they saying? Go see

On football and on cricket-field, or on South Afric's veldt. . "

There are our sons, our gift of fifty years, the Volunteer and colonial,, then not valued much, now forward in the foremost ranks of men. Yes, surely we have progressed. Just fifty years ago we took over the Plain, with ■its- never ending tussock, from the pig, the wild dogs, and, the weka, and have transformed'it into happy homes for thousands of ever-improving people, with their productive fields, their gardens, and their echools. Yes, we have eaten and lived, but with that we should never have had rest. " On,, onward!," was ever the cry, "for progress," and to-day we number our nocks and herds by millions. We send Home hundreds of thousands of tons of the necessaries of life, , to those wanting theni at Home ; and thous< ands of tons of wool for their -health and i comfort-. We have reared a people, hon-^ oured by -their country, the array; and; their ' Queen. Yfee, surely wo have progressed* and our fifty years are just pas&ingj- and now we begin- fifty more,- and' with the ever-rest-lers energy of- the Anglo-Saxon, ever crying " onward," we will progress.