The Waikato Times. "OMNE SOLUM FORTI PATRIA." TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1872.

Waikato Times, Volume II, Issue 102, 24 December 1872, Page 2

The Waikato Times. "OMNE SOLUM FORTI PATRIA." TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1872.

I'i:fore iuioihor issue of tins journal is in the humls of our readets, Christmas, the great festirul of the Christian world, will have cjme and gone; we will therefore wish our friends a '' Me.-ry Christmas and a Happy New J-ear." \,V r <; have all made < U? pi operations for enjoyinetifc ; as u ]ieoj)le we have got our sports and rac<'S, and as individuals v.c have each formed oar o'.va little plan f.;r as happy a time as po-sib'e. Those who are fortunale to have ihe'r relations within re a eh. have made arrangements to meet and feast with t' cm after the good old fris'ii-m of their ancestors, those who are not so fortunate are redueed to other and ie.-s happy senemes. Chvistrnas is very properly a seas.m for rejoicing, but to the thoughtful man it is a : so a season for reiiectiou as to the past and anticipation as to the future. His thoughts carry him back to the. Christmas of- his childhood, and tho>e of his youth and early manhood. At the lir.-.t stag'- lie only looked upon Christmas as the t:me of pudding, cake, presents, and the season at which ilie parental rule; was less stringent and his natural guides partially blind to his youthful peccadilloea, At (he second stage in his life, he remembers the cheerful anticipations for the future indulged L O ill by a mind unsoared by contact with the world, and from its freshness, incapable of reflecting anv but bright and hopeful thought.-;. The next Christmas that. (Mines promnientiy before his mind's eve is, in ad proojibtlii.y, the first that lie passed after eomuienei!i\r in ;>. mil way 10 face ilv trials and atix'."tie" of h.v. I>•: retirri-ib-T--, {■!:!:<• tne tionetui feelu it;' sraif ve l- 1 ■ ■bv 111 very short experience having laugiii, nim. that the world is not qinte so bright as ho had previously painted ;t. liie next, in all probability chat inarms an important ep-'ch iu his iif'e, is the first passe"! bv' him in the land of his a lopiio.i He has found the old country too thickly popu'afo 1, the struggle for advancement or even a. bare existen.ee too. sever j, and has iefo father, mother, brothers, sisters, and the lan.l of his birth, to take upon himself the arduous duties of eai ly colonisation, fie has probably spent the day in the rcyesaes of the bush, surroimde I by fho work of his hands and that of his.mates.; he remembers likely the pudding, the joint cooked in his camp oven, or the steak in. the ashes of his fire, a dinner so different from that with which those he had left behind him would celebrate the great feast of the year. In spite of the roughness of the situation, lie, nevertheless?, wished that the absent wore with him; the hopefulness of early youth has again coma over him and ho feels that patient industry is all that Is necessary for si. time of plency, U nofc. ot affluence, to be iti store for him. Bince that day he lias., in all probability, met with many disappointments ; Maori disturbances have driven him off his land, his crops have ia.ile.l, and he has experienced many of the drawbacks incidental to the life he.has. embraced. He finds himself to-day about to celebrate another Christmas, and as a settler in the Waikato, we fee! justifitd in pro.hcting for him a future, perhaps not quite so bright as in his sanguine days lie hoped for himself; yet one to which he can look hopefully forward. Ihe district in which he has settled is making rapid strides, population is daily flocking into it; a railway to carry his produce to the dearest market in IV ew Zealand will shortly be completed, and we must not omit to mention that the great bugbear of the settler in the Xorth Island—the Maori difficultyhas disappeared. Again wishing our readers a •' Merry Christmas and a Happy A r ew Year,"- we bid them good-bye till after the. only day's, holiday which the exigencies ofjournalism allow to those who cater for the popu.ar thirst for information on the doings, not only immediately around them, but at the most distant points of the.earth's surface.