LE BON'S BAY.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 393, 11 May 1880, Page 3

LE BON'S BAY.

By On* of the Unemployed.

The last meeting of my mates in town •disgusted me. They wanted to accept t,e •offer of Government and go to work, bo work not suiting this child, I thought Id try Lβ Bi/m'b for it agrainOn reaching German Bay, I was but- : prised to see they really had got a road formed and two bridges erected since 1 jrot sacked from the mill, because 1 was lazy they said, but the truth of the matter 18,1 was never cut out for work, and never urill work as long aa I can get on without it. ■> It's a grand -country, New Zealand ib, tor a poor working man like me, but its not so good as it used to was. Well, on reaching the top of the wnge I sat down to take a sup of milk Id got from Mr Brooks' at the Head of the Buy, and a bite to eat, when who should come up but old , looking as hearty as ever, and says-" Hallo, Jack, have you come back here. I thought we'd seen the last of you," but he twigs the milk, and adds, •" but I'm right glad to see you, man, come down and have a bit <>' dinner." Now, dinner's a thing I never refuse unless I've just had two or three, and then 1 always say I'll look in to supper. So away we go, and before long I gets my leg slap into ft hole in the road. I quoted a line oi\two from the Litany, and iJicn remarked-" I fancy 1 remember ♦hat hole there some years back. "* , •< Yr-ry likely, but the lioad Board are eoing'loVill iur tenders to have it tilled up whenVjiey'ro m funds; they'd have done it !» •"■, but they were waiting for the Cou .iy Council to take over the inflin roads.' : ' . Now, being a humane man, 1 took a Btoue and filled up the' hole in question. Qjd gave a sigh, ai-d seemed hardly to like it; lam airaid 1 d-1 |,ir« out of a ] " Now I come to think of it, the Iload Board aren't going to spend any more ,m,neyon.tl»iß Bide, all the funds now are be ng spent on the carriage drive," said he. pointing to the road on the sunny side of the>ay, which seemed to have a hn<grade all the way up. i " The last part of the road is being done, now for a song ; there's 85 chains of it ] being benched ten feet on the solid, and ; half of it goes through rock, for about j £130 Three yr four years ago three ] times the money would not have done it, j and there was over a score of tenderers for it, and all within a few pounds of each ! other." ' Looking -over the Panama side, I noticed that what a year or two ago was all bush is laid down in grass and fenced now. Aftei dinner, I borrowed a stick of tobacco, tilled my match-box, and started down the hill, nearly breaking my neck on Crotty's cutting, which seems to get steeper everyday. At the foot i saw an ■old friend, Professor , and perceived him limping a good deal. "Hallo, Fred, how goes it, old brasher ; what's up ?" " Those — bleseed — rheumatics, settled j iv my hip and cooked me. (Jome in and have a bit to eat." He alwny* was good company, and we got talking of the North Wand and Nelson .side, and gradually got on to talk of the bay, and one or two strangers to me coining up joined Jn. The subject was the survey of the place. They all seemed in a chronic state of grumble. Either their land was not surveyed at all or else it was done wrong, or there were too many roads through it. All 1 could make out of it was that it had cost the Government 2'ds or more an acre while the last uurveyoi was hero, but that the present one was pleasing almost everybody (1 daren't say everybody, for an angel made to order could not do that in 'Bouses), and works late and early, wetand dry ;as one one of his men said —" Man, he's a tunor!" I fancy 1 recognised the voice us one I'd heard singing out—"Woe Spot, come up Topsawyer," when I was taking a spell in the bush up on Dnlglish s hill. 1 tried to borrow five bob from one of the fellows as he seenu;d a nice, good young- man, but I failed, doubtless on account jf tht j . diliident manner in which I arkftii it, 1 thought it was time to go.

Slow music ! Whence come'those dulcet sounds —a sort of cross between the Old Hundred with the chill off and Hold the Fort with variations ? Ah, I ace, I am fiut.-nli: ttie Littlo Sanctuary as my good young friend who slitill lie nameless calls "it. Rut, curiously speaking, the Zion Congrr jraliumil Ohnrch dues want a lick of wliiiewii^li; it vcnllv tloi'S. Don't mistake tin', the ilniivli. not tlus congregation. It looks vi'i'y pretty in ilie distance. I like it in tin! distance, lull the pn-tty little chuivh yard is spniL-d l.y the ham-like appearance of the ouiiding. A little further on I saw what could not be mistaken — the Government school. Tho number of children bus, I hear, fallen off slightly since the mill has gone to Hickory. (Kxcuse me calling it Hickory, liut my pencil wont into convulsions when I attempted Waikerakikari. Ah! that's it.) One thing struck me was the number of very amall children which seemed to be there from ahout five or six years to nine, and in wize would run about, say twelve to the schoolmaster. Talking , or. schoolmasters, since I was here last poor old Thompson has passed away. He died. one niny say, a stranger in a strange land. He should have lived and died in Le Bon's, and would have if he had not been driven away by a clique with whom he did not choose to conform, and whose day is done. Tic would have had many kind hands to smooth his dying pillow, for he was endeared to all who knew and were capable of appreciating him. Attached to the school id the Public Library, a compact little room, containing about 4;JO volumes.. On the table I noticed the local and town papers, as well as the Illustrated London News, Hansard, dx. The class of books is not exactly what one would expect in such an out of the way place, putting novels and travels to one side. I noticed one or two queer books, such as " The Unseen Universal," " Adam and the Adamite," " Sermons in Stones," and " The Arena of Spiritualism," Is this a safe class of books to have in a public library ?

A little further down I came to Mr Thomas Aldridge's place, and noticed that the " stir of busy life was there," and on looking closer I observed that this was now the Post-office, and that he had begun to '* run a store." Knowing that I was light for a feed at least there, in I goes, as bold as brass, and say.s, '' Good day, Mr Aldridge ;" I would have said Tom, but I thought, perhaps, he might have got a bit jumped up, as is usual when one gets enterprising; but no, he was just the same as he used to be on the logging track in the old days, before I ricked my back and could work. " Welly Jack, got-back ; going to work for the King. Ah?" Good line, thinks I; run tip a score. " Yes; I'm on the way over to Hickory. , ' "That's right. Poor beggar! I pity him; the men have been leading him an awful life lately, wanting this and that.', " It& just the want of this and that that brings me here. Can you let me have a pair of moleskins and a shirt ? " So in I goes, and had set myself up in clothes for the winter, when says he :— " By the way, Jack, I think you left i small account unsettled before you went. I'li just put it all together." " Good tay, Mr Aid rich. I'm fery pad to-tay ; will ye kif me wan leetle neep ? " " For the love of goodness, Peter, do ye want to finish the mead ? get along." Thereupon we ineaded. And then Tom began to expatiate on the accommodation of his new house, of which the wall plates were down, and judging from the space it covers, it looks a big house for a private one. Nearly as big a one as Mr Smith's, a little further down the bay ; a fine looking house, but spoilt by the surroundings. A few chains dowh the road from Mr Oldridge'B, on the other side, begins the new Waikerakikeri road, for which, I understand, tenders are out for clearing ; and, from what I hear, it will be, undoubtedly, the beat way from that bay, as it is v, very good grade almost all the way, and will be an easy road to make as there ie no rock to go through on the Waikeriklkeri gjde, and very little benching will be required. ' On rciu Jang the bridge at the bend of river, I noticed a pound, which I hear has buen erecteofor over a year and ready to open, but though a little shinaninkin it is still closed, ti ( l the big onea can get a little more fencing t'.nno. I believe the standing ; excute is that they cannot get an ordinance. I tried to get down the road made a year or two ago to the Government jetty, and failed most signally in .ie attempt. If ever a road was a disgrace to any place, this is to Borises. I don't blame the Koad Board for it Mug out of repair ; I do for ever making it. It is a useless road, made :o a useless jetty. The jetty wah put where it is to suit one person, and of course now it is useless to him and everyone ; and, as it is now, it is useless even to Mr Dalglish, It is at the most exposed part of the bay, and on the wrong side altogether. They were talking about erecting a crane on it at the iioad Board meeting the other day, and if.' it had not been for Mr Aldridge, the member for this strenuously opposing it, £25 would haW* beer, thrown away on this. The jetty is shamefully out of repair, and the road to it. simply impassable, ati.l yet they have done it. On reaching Italglish's Hill, I saw that ho (I mean Jimmy) was working it now since he bus got it out of (be late lessees' hands, and is doing a little in the firewood line also. I met old Grumbler up there. He w inted to know bow tl.e deuce lie was to keep a family of nine, and cut firewood at seven bob a cord. I sat clown and listened to him for some time, as I jnjoy hearing anyone using relined language. Dalglish's Hill is a very different pliice now to what it was when the two mills were working there last year. Talking of that, tlie timber shootis well worth seeing. It is about, I suppt/se, 300 1 or 400 yards long, and lias a fall of about forty-five degrees, running right down to i the edge of the jetty. The unfortunate ■ thing about it before Mr Dalglish's time ' was that the sleds that carried the timber ! had a bad habit of carrying away, and 1 careering down at the rate of knots, and killing or maiming for life, &c. any un- " fortunate who happened to be in the way. 1 but what was worse v mem tiimtner " went i out to sea. i 1 can't get to Hickory to-night, so I'll I sundown here till I have to clear.