COLONISTS IN LONDON.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 719, 27 August 1870, Page 4

COLONISTS IN LONDON.

At every step you take in London at present (says the Anglo- Australian) you meet old colonists, who seem to ■ have gravitated to England in multitudes this year. Some intend to settle permanently here, others only to have a look round and to go back to whence they came. Whatever their object, there is no mistaking them. They have a jaunty, independent air, and a nonchalant manner of talking that immediately identifies them; Although their pockets are generally, it is to be supposed, pretty well lined, they are not particularly free with their money, and generally, as the saying is, " look at a shilling before spending it.'' It is a phenomenon as old as the hills, that it is generally the men with considerable means who are the most " canny " and careful in pecuniary matters ; for they have a stake sufficient to excite the exercise of any economical talent they possess ; and on the other hand, the vast class of individuals, wiih, so to speak, "nothing at all," are as a rule reckless in their expenditure a,s far as it goes. Hence, soldiers and sailors with " a shilling a day" spend more in proportion to their incomes than Rothschilds or Barings. The Grand Stand at the Derby was thickly sprinkled with colonists. There might be noticed ExGovernor Sir George Grey, and on the course were Dr Featherstone and a crowd of folks from Australia and New Zealand too numerous 'to mention. The melancholy thing about the otherwise happy class of successful returned colonists seems to be that they are restless to a degree to interfere with true enjoyment ; and their desire to be noticed and. lionised

in ever so small a way exhibits itself op-l pressively, and bursts out disagreeably under disappointment. Their wives are infected with the same idiosyncrasy, but have the tact and the good taste to show it les3. Probably the circumstances that In many cases they have been little kings or queens in theic own colonial spheres, has unfitted them for playing what is vulgarly termed " second fiddle "at home. Some amongst them are inclined to show too plainly also, that they estimate their fellow beings pretty much by the size of their respective moneybags ; and such expressions as "he has L7OOO a year at the very least ;" "he has made a pretty good pile," crop up every five minutes in their conversation. As a rule, too", they are not reading folks. They have ordinarily been too busy with their material interests to bother themselves much with more intellectual matters. But in spite of all there is an originality about them that is attractive, and if they are self-satisfied, they are usually very good-humored. What sort of a race will the Australians be a hundred years hence? Judging from those who at present visit England, if their national characteristics, so to speak,go on developing, they will have much of the mercurial temperament of the French, possess great sensitiveness, but less of robust mental energy than the inhabitants of the mother country.