AFTER FORTY-FIVE YEARS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 792, 15 April 1910, Page 8

LONG ABSENCE ON THE CHATHASIS. Itr. V. A. D. Cox, who has been spending about >i woek in Cbristchurch, has lived on the Chlitham .Islands for fortyfive years. During that period, except for his present visit, he has left the Islands only once, and that twenty-five years ago, when he paid his first brief visit to this city. Until last week (says the "Tinies") he never saw a bicycle, an electric Iramcar, a toxical), or even a hansom cab. Ho is astonished at the numbers of people who rushed past him on bicycles, and he was for some time at a loss to understand how all old aud young alike manage to sit on their wheels so easily and gracefully, without auy apparent danger of falling off. A visit to a modern newspaper oiiice and n night at a Icincmatograph entertainment, surprised him more than anything olsc. Hβ is an old soldier, having beeu an officer in the army in India at the time of the mutiny, and he saw amongst the moving ! picture representations of scenes in the South African War which gave him a good idea of. the changes brought about in regard to modern methods of fighting. He found a great deal of interest in the modern style of uniforms, the accoutrements, ami the big-gun armaments. Representations of scenes from "A Midsunnncr Night's Dream" sent his mind back to the last Shakespearean play lie had seen in' England, with Charles Kean in rhe leading part. The traffc, the street noises, and the cries of the newsboys made Christchurch to-day appear to him as London was when he left it some fifty years ago. Ho is impressed with the healthy ' appearance of the young people liere, especially the young girls. Ho can hardly understand the change that has como over industrial affairs, and he is surprised, at tho position occupied by trades' unionism aud workers' organisations, which are very different things now from what.they were when he left the -busy centres to live "the simple life" on a remote island in the PaciKc Ocean.