WHAT IS OCCASIONALLY SAID OF US.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3224, 29 October 1881, Page 3

WHAT IS OCCASIONALLY SAID OF US.

A Perth paper publishes a letter from a recent arrival in New Zealand, from whioh we (N. 35, Times), make the Mowing extract :—

I was heartily glad to get out of Dunedin. Business was perfectly abject. An ex-mayor, himself a merchant, said to rae, ' Happy the man who can realise, and leave New Zealand just now!' The climate of Dunedin is a very nasty one, and people living in other towns hate ifc on that account. Oamaru decidedly has the best climate in New Zealand for Scotchmen in health. I asked the chief officer of our steamer in which town he would prefer to settle ; he said at once, Auckland. This town covers as much ground as Edinburgh, if nofc more, although only 40,000 afc outside, with all suburbs. Bufcthen a va3fc number of the houses have large gardens, and there are extensive public parks within tbe limits, and the ground is very hilly and broken, though nofc so bad as Dunedin. The principal business streets are mostly brick, all else wood. Houses generally have very small rooms, and few fire-places—they do nofc please people from Britain at all. Auckland climate is very relaxing, extremely oppressive when the north or equitorial wind blows j bufc pleasant with any wind southwardly. Of wind there is enough and to spare; but there is plenty of sunshine, except in the winter, which is more properly a rainy season than a winter. Working men's and humble clerks' houses are terribly small poky places—mere boxes; bufc people seem to be so much out of doors they don't mind. We returned here on 19fch July, and since that day I am sure there have nofc been more than ten days on which a lady could not get as much exercise in sunshine as Bhe cared to. Colonial living is not pleasant at first, servants are ruinously expensive, and must live on the best as their master or else they leave. House rent is extremely high. For a wooden box, with partitions into, say, six rabbit hutches, about £60 a year is demanded. Town taxes, &_., are very high everywhere. Meat is cheap in name, bufc somehow the meat is inferior, and does not go so far as afc Home. Poultry rery dear. Fruit monstrously so j poor ipples, 6d per lb. Bread rather dearer than it Home. Whenever labor touches any;hing in New Zealand, then up goes its cost ikyhigh. This is all from the millions of sorrowed money. Money seems to have 3een like water. Bufc a change is setting [n. My wife wanted an orange the other lay, being thirsty in the sun, and had to pay -_d for ifc. I knew the pamphlets about New Zealand told crammers, but I didn't think they were such big ones. Nevertheless, ifc is a fine country on the whole, with a jlimafce, generally speaking,, superior to the Eome one 5 bufc afc present, for £100 at Home one can live as comfortably as for 6150 here, if nofc more so. Farming is pretty precarious out here. Oats were sold jommonly at ls a bushel this season. I Ind that in this province farmers may live >n their farms by hard personal work, bufc ;hey never pufc anything in the Bank, because they can't! " Many retired military nen and young professional men have gone m to land, afc cheap prices too, jut away in the bush, far from markets, and working their lives and their ivives' lives out. Very many have had to »ive in. On the Canterbury plains some ikilled men are making money, and many mskilled hare lost ifc, even there. The air if New Zealand is so moist that one feels jhilly afc a higher temperature than that jausing the same effect afc Home, and fires ire welcome, bufc fuel is monstrously dear 5 joor coal, 28s to 30s per ton, although there ire many mines in this province. Here, igain, comes in the high cost of labor. Rheumatism and neuralgia are common lisorders from the great moisture. There is a much greater variety of climate in New Zealand than at Home, and it is difficult to understand ifc. This is midsummer, and people wear Indian helmets during the day, md then lan bear two blankets afc night, bhe change i 3 so marked. The country iround Auckland is most charming, the splendid gardens containing such brilliant mows of flowers. I have seen geraniums here eight to ten feefc high, and growing rmifce wild and untended ; bufc neither have lowers the scent nor fruit the flavor of that it Home.