SOCIETY IN THE COLONIES.

Evening Star, Issue 3696, 26 December 1874, Page 2

SOCIETY IN THE COLONIES.

To the Editor, Sir, Probably the least pleasing aspect of Colonial society is that exhibited by a class well known but not easily described i refer to the young man him Sieves, but without occupation, whom we continually encounter in all s rts of places in the Colom<33. In schools, on stock-horns, bullockdrmng, digging, everywhere we see these social Arabs; peasant, genialfeh lows, with a dash of cynicism begotten of their enforced half-banishment from society, living for the most part in the “ dead past •’ burying “its dead.” They have roved in many lands, and have observed many phases of human nature. Their knowledge, if not profound, hj varied, and, though they hck the couceatration necessary to succest in ipe, they have rainy social qualities which a . hist Qleap their path to every lifesiae. They are always in a state of im peoiintosity their hopes aud aspl ations have faded into maudlin remembrance, aul alas ! too often regret for a missp at Hie aud dismay at the prospect of a® : and penury have driven them to drunken courses or actual saiiide. We are continually receiving from dome specimens of this ca.-s and lor none is the p-ospect muv dreary ; for in this busy age amim» the uuging anvils and the clattering hammers ot labor—m the money-getting race-they baye "no W o r ],,(;> Kjibuldered out Qt the coqrse hy hurrying crowds of worker, p re Col TiP“lled to hapg upon the skirts ot civilization, and toil and pick up stray orum 1,8 from the ignorance, the charity, or tne weakness of others. In truth it is a sad aud sickening sight—not so much to sve the unemployed craftsmen looking anxiously for a “job” as to Wft-<:h the furtive prowling (iu the large towns qf these Colonies) of tnoii3 jaded, hopeKwH beings who are borne down to the very dust of moral degradation through the consciousness the bitter consciousness—that they are powerless to earn the bread they need What a sad blighting of youthful hope.,’ what a spectacle of the misery of being without an occupation in the world do s anyone of the seedy c owd for instanc , that glide into the Melbourne (-*uhlic Library every morning aud spend a long day steeped m the nepavhe of literature—agord to the observant onlooker!

ub our aim in b inging up these objectless members of society is not to draw a picture, but to point a moral That moral I commend to every parent and protector of children in this Colony. See your son fully instructed in some practical trade or profession before his time comes for battling single handed with the world, should he then cumber the ground" he wi 1 come under another and fat harsher denomination than that of the class to which we refer. We know there exists among many persons iu the the 1 prosperous ones a disposition to regard a particular business training as needless for their he-is. Yet how abort-sighted a view is this. Riches may flee at any time, <ir quarrels and their fruits ia the “will of the testator,” may altogether change the positioh o! the

man, and he may be thrown rudderless on the surging sea of active life. And surely no more lamentable fate can befal a youth educated, of goad birth, and of average! perhaps superior abilities, than to collapse a ter twenty-five or thirty years, into the wasted, dissipated, seedy idler, whose looks awaken pitying disgust, and whose dismal whine or drunken song bespeaks the utter wreck of the mental and the moral constitation I—l am, & c., LOG Dunedin, December 24.