HIS FRIENDS.

New Zealand Graphic, 27 June 1906, Page 27

HIS FRIENDS.

The anecdote as told above fails to do justice to the courage of the young miner and his friends in facing a yelling mob bent on violence, and quite capable of murder, for those were wild days, and nothing but a cool head and a heavy hand could bring a man safely through suc-h a scene as this. Nothing appeals to men of this type more strongly and directly than physical strength and courage; and it is difficult for us in these .well-ordered and peaceful times to appreciate at their true worth the qualities which .would win respect and admiration under the social conditions that we have thus vaguely and inadequately described. Young Seddon made many friends and few enemies on the Coast; and it is an interesting fact that two of his old mining •’mates" have survived him to recall for a new generation, the life of other days. Mr. T. Ballantyne. of North Canterbury, worked with the Premier on the Coast at the time when the long-handled shovel was the symbol of New Zealand's prosperity ; and he was still at work—erecting a bridge near Rangiora—when he heard the sad news that his old comrade was dead. The third member of the trio, Mr. James Steele, was a "chum” of young Seddon’s in Victoria. “Steele,” says a Southern journal, “was one of the proprietors of the old Fardowners claim at Bendigo, and Richard Seddon worked on the claim. A broad, full-chested, sun-tanned Englishman of the best type. Mr. Steele became, perhaps, the most valuable friend Richard Seddon possessed in the days of his early political struggles when friends were of most value.” In social and political life, Mr. Steele was Seddon’s firm and faithful ally. .On the other side of the family, the friendship was just as strong and sincere; and Mrs. Steele’s home on the roadside just south of Kumara is still adorned with photographs of the family, more especially of the children, for whom she always displayed the deepest affection. “Mr. Steele is still alive, carrying his years in the light manner that the vicissitudes of early manhood made natural to both himself and his old companion of the diggings.” Even in personal appearance and attire “the men of the sixties” were entirely different from those we meet in town or country to-day- For the sake of the contrast we may quote again from Mr. L. Northcrofi's vivid sketch of life on the diggings in the days when young Seddon .was just rising into local fame: “Phvsieally the diggers of those days were a splendid type of men, their years running from twenty to forty, from twenty-seven to thirty-three being in the majority. Full dress consisted of a high slouch hat, the front turned up sharp and the back turned down, a Crimean shirt with a knotted crimson silk scarf, a pair of moleskin trousers, having a bright yellowish tinge by reason of the clay which •eemed to wash in but never wash out, and kept in position by a crimson silk sash, sometimes carrying a leathern sheath with knife, ‘nugget’ pattern boots, and erimaon pilk laced cord round the crown of the hat. Full beards were worn then, and the dandies prided themselvea on the length and thickness of this adorn-

ment. Irishmen generally preferred green to inmson sashes and ties. 1 never saw any other colours used.” Let the reader think for a moment of the " full dress ” herein depicted, and then remember that the man who led the dances at Kumara and Greymouth in nugget boots and moleskins lived to drive through London streets attended by gvrg»ous outriders and to appear in “Windsor uniform” at Royal levees. Perhaps nothing in Mr. Seddon’s wonderful career more fully reveals the marvellously romantic- nature of his rise to greatness than the simple details of the life with whieh lie was familiar and through whieh he began his steady advance towards power and eminence forty years ago.