LOAFER IN THE STREET.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 224, 26 February 1875, Page 3

LOAFER IN THE STREET.

THE CROPS OF THE WEST COAST. {From the Press.") {Continued.) When I get hold of a topic like this, which, I'm sure, worked up with copious notes Isimilar to those painfully taken under circumstances of no ordinary difficulty by yours truly, could, as it were, expand into a subject fraught with interest and utility to your readers, I feel sad about losing my notes. I feel like vamping up agricultural statistics from West Coast sources, and giving them to you at per line. But no, upon mature consideration, I'd die sooner. We live in an honest age. Every one has a figment of honesty, and hugs it according to circumstances. My figment is very small. I rarely use it. When I do, it don't seem to fit well. But I shall not willingly deceive your readers about these crops. I have not been paid to do so, and looking back on a long and varied career, I can truthfully say that I never told a lie yet, without getting a fair wage for a fair falsehood. Had 1 but carried out my principles on a larger scale I should be riding in my carriage, instead of having to resort to such a low means of getting a crust as that in which I am at present engaged. Don't notice my grammar just now. There are times when a lofty soul revolts dead against grammar. My soul often does. You may have observed this. I expect you have on more than one occasion. Let us continue. The crops in the Arahura district are fair. I can report several grass paddocks in conjunction with hilarious homesteads. I use the word hilarious advisedly. In Canterbury homesteads only smile. There they laugh. They laugh because grass and corn comes new to them. We pass the sale yards at the Arahura, where the Canterbury cattle and sheep are sold every Tuesday. Mr Tabart, who sells, kindly said he thought I might make a living over there by pitching cattle. I might do so, but I met a number of people in the West Coast metropolis who, I should say, from a cursory acquaintance, could pitch far better than I could. We pass the Gaol and the Lunatic Asylum, which are in a very picturesque situation, and exceedingly well managed. I went all over the former with Dr Dermott, who has charge of both institutions, and who seems to be just about as popular as a man could be. The Gaol I did not visit, which I rather regret, because my remarks on the interior economy of gaols would be worth noting. A gaol is an institution I am tolerably familiar with. The more you see of them as a resident, the less you like them, unless you happen to be a first-class criminal like Mr Sullivan. The position he holds is, however, so lofty, that few could aspire to attaining it with any amount of success. We arrive in Hokitiia about 8 o'clock in the evening. We stop at Ben Osborne's, where, it is needless to say, we are comfortable. Up to this time I feel I have not got hold of many agricultural notes, and begin to feel a bit down on it. All I've seen in the agricultural and pastoral line has been some paddocks in the Arahura district, and all I've heard is that a man in that district raised, this season (13) Thirteen tons of strawberries off a quarter-acre section. I see a nice respectable looking gent in the commercial-room and get asking about crops and things. He says he don't know much about it, but offers to throw me for two drinks. He throws eighteen, and goes away laughing in a sardonic style, and saying that he thinks no Canterbury man ought to come over reckoning up West Coast statistics who can't throw eighteen any time. You might think I got resting next day and neglecting my business, but I did'nt. I went right into the Cafe, where Sam Harris was pointed out to me as a man who could tell me all about crops. He said he would give me all the information in his power. I gathered from him that Mr Bob Walker's oats were splendid, and Mr Lazar's chaff was unsurpassed. I got writing all this in my notes, and a lot more too, but I have since discovered this information to be unreliable. Hokitika is a nice town. Kevell street is its main feature. It consists, to a great extent, of Licensed Victuallers' Warehouses. A visitor going up street has to do about three hundred yards at a time, because hospitality is a bit poured over him, and pausing for refreshment every twenty yards comes embarrassing after a time. The institutions are good. The Library is a fine building. I behaved most honorably towards this institution. I went up by myself one day. I saw some portraits of Megatheriums and Icthiosaurrusses on the stairs. They appeared very accurate from what I've seen of these animals. At the head of the stairs is a money-box, with a notice above it intimating that visitors are allowed to donate sixpence towards the funds. On making a financial statement to myself I discovered that I had only a shilling. I tossed up by myself double or quits with the Institution. It won, and I dropped that last shilling of mine into the box. There's no meanness about me. I went and borrowed a pound from a member of committee five minutes afterwards on the strength of it. Hokitika is great on hats, Ladies' hats, I mean. I'm not sure that the ladies' hats would riot strike a stranger more than anything else. I .reckon two, or say three, would give a Horticultural Society a fair start ; such flowers I never saw before. One hat was laid down in barley. The crop would go, I should say, seventy-five bushels to the acre. I feel a hattist would do well on the Coast. The theatre is ahead of ours. The " King of the Air" was flying when I was there. Were I not what I am, I should like to be a " King of the Air." They seem to make good wages. The beach is worth looking at. Here the breakers roll in, white-crested. You can watch the spirts of wild sea smoke and Sheets of wasteful foam just as long as you please without charge. It's a grand sight. You could get drowned there as easy as possible. The environs of the town are very pretty. The Kanieri is a Jovcly drive. I walked there, and coming back a party driving back picked me up. He said he was the public conveyance, but I was the only passenger he had ever had before except one, g,nd he didn't come. The hospital is on the other si4e of the river. It is a good iustiU-

tion, but no one gets Bick on the Coast, They brpak legs and arms occasionally, but no one dies there hardly. It's too healthy. If aDy Mariana keeps wishing she were dead, she has either to keep on crossing the leremakau, or else go to another town, say Christchurch. There's another institution I want to mention in the West Coast Metropolis. That is Mac's Hotel. The particular feature of this warehouse is the counter lunches. You can walk in and eat sausage rolls, pork pies, cold beef, and drink a glass of beer for sixpence. We have no such place in Canterbury. Were there such an establishment here how cheaply a lot of us could live. I wanted Mac to come over and start here, but he said if there were many of my sort about he wouldn't be able to reckon on a fortune in fifty years. I likedJMac. I eat, according to Christchurch rates, five pounds worth of lunches and paid 6s for them. I can't work in that style here. Alas, there are no counter lunches here. I went to the sports in Hokitika. I don't know much about sports. I learned something about wrestling though. I learned the difference between Cumberland and Cornish styles. In one case you get thrown on your head by an opponent in a cinglet. In the other he puts on a holland jacket, and throws you on your back. Then you retire, and your friends having told you that you don't know much about wrestling, you go home and think what a pleasant day you've spent. Their different events fill up well though. Our's here don't always. In a district not many miles away from Christchurch, two enterprising "sports" got up an athletic meeting last New Year's Day. They collected subscriptions to the amount of about £lsor so,but theday turning out rainy no competitors put in an appearance. Were they put out? Oh, no. The sports were advertised to take place, and the two promoters ran them off themselves. The competition was awfully keen, and the programme was gone through in wonderfully good time. Then the promoters divided and went home. They'll bring out a fine programme next New Year's Day, I expect. The cemetery is another thing worth seeing in Hokitika. A cemetery is not a place I hanker after, so long as I can walk about. When I saw the tomb of Abelard and Heloise in Pere La Chaise, I couldn't raise a weep at all over it. There were four young ladies, and an aged orphan of about seventy, crying kilderkins of tears, and appearing to derive satisfaction from the performance. The aged orphan used up a bandana, and then borrowed my handkerchief to keep his emotions stirring op. I have never seen him or it since. If this should catch his eye he can forward it now. The West Coast Metropolis has a City Council, a Fire Brigade in connection with a torchlight procession, a police force, an education system, and other luxuries much the same as we have ; but I grieve to say it has no drainage question. It hasn't a cab dispute either, which is about as tenderly sweet a boon as a town could possess. There is, I understand, only one cab in Hokitika, and he is a buggy on four wheels. For the sake of Hokitika I tremble when I think what the result of our cab business will be on the mind of this cabby. He may strike also, and all Westland will have to go afoot. Mark my words; if that cabby has the spirit of our cabbies we shall get a telegram that he has defied the Hokitika burghers. You may probably expect to hear a trifle about gold-digging. I didn't 3ee much of it this time. I've been a digger though. I was engaged in the business twice. First time three of us went alluvial-digging. It was a moderate claim our was. It would run about half a dwt to the load. We retired after giving the claim a really fair trial, and the storekeeper remembers us yet. He has a lot of memoranda relative to our mode of living even unto this day. Another time I went quartz mining. I engaged as a shareholder. I paid on borrowed money, I solemnly assure you, fifteen calls of £1 each. The company was then wound up. I was summonsed for £lO, and left the place in disgust—without paying. In regard of the prospects of the West Coast, I should say. putting it briefly, that it will be a good sort of place. Therj will be for years to come a bit of gold to be found there, and the timber is in itself a mine of wealth, but, alas 1 it requires capital to develop does timber, and in this instance a large capital. I don't profess to know much about the subject, but 1 hat's my idea. How I wish I could develop that timber. I expect, if there be any honor in the man who has got hold of my valuable statistical crop notes, to be able to give you, say nine columns, about those crops; but you must be patient over that man. I am—because I owe him a pound. In closing these few well written remarks I should just like to say that if any one visiting the Coast has such a good time as I had, he will want to go and see the West Coasters again, and as I have before said, one could keep on encoring the journey across the mountains till further orders.