OLD TIMES AND PLACES.

New Zealand Graphic, 27 June 1906, Page 40

OLD TIMES AND PLACES.

It is true that Mr. Seddon was an adept at snatching odd minutes of sleep under conditions that would have made rest impossible to most men; and he had raised the practice of going without sleep altogether almost to the level of a fine art. But strong as he always had been, and inured to the toil of Ministerial existence as he had now beepine, the strain of this strenuous holiday assuredly did ruora ta

break down his health than the change and the delight of seeing his own country again did to restore it. Ilia first objective on the Coast was naturally Kumara. and there with pardonable pride he led the way to his old homestead, and pointed to the trees that he had planted, and the land that he had cleared with his own hands. Swerywhere along his route be knew the settlers, and the formal business of the day was constantly delayed while he “yarned” with old miners and took tea and chatted at the door of wayside cottages with their wives. At Dillmanstown he •topped in the middle of his speech to shake hands with an old lady whom he recognised in the crowd. At Hokitika, where the popular enthusiasm had naturally concentrated itself iu a very demonstrative form, he was presented with a silver service of plate as a memento of his twenty-five years of work for the district; and in the inevitable speech of the day he dwelt with truly excusable emphasis upon the faet that all that he had achieved he had won for himself without money or social influence, or any of tl»e adventitious aids by which popularity and political power are so often secured. The record of the events of this long, busy week may not appear imposing in print, but no ordinary language can do justice to the enthusiasm and the affection displayed by the. good people of the West Coast for the great man who was still to them as he had been twenty-five years before, plain “Dick Seddon.”