NELSON ESSE AND POSSE.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1339, 13 November 1872, Page 4

NELSON ESSE AND POSSE.

The following is part of an imaginary dialogue published in the Colonist: — Ben; Tho Province is not so poor as you make out. Where can you find such gold fields; deposits of coal, superior in quality to anything in New Zealand ; look at the almost inexhaustible masses of hematite iron ore at Golden Bay ; your black sani ; your splendid bed of pottery clay ; your fine brick earth ; deposits of plumbago ; your quarries of marble, granite, and freestone ; your splendid fruit; hops; and nearly every variety of vegetable growing in this climate ; your freedom from high winds ; your great rise and fall of tide ; your abundance of fish ; and many other things I have noticed during the time I have been makiDg a very small pile of your gold, and which I intend to carry away. A Province possessing all this should not be poor. Depend upon it, Bill, there is something "rotten in the state of Denmark." — BUI : Ah, there you go again. Well, perhaps, our State is in the same state as that State is ; but I am certain my state is as bad as it can well be, for I am reduced from lOst 101 b in 1868, to Bst 51b in 1872 ; and 1 believe I Bhould about balance the beam if my family of five, old woman and all, were in the other scale. The youngsters have paved a large backyard with tho shells of the pipies we have eaten, and there are no watercresses left within many chains of our door. Evor since I voted for the Superintendent I have been living mainly on the hopes of a railway, pipies, and watercresses. Ah, dear me, yes, I have been funny without knowing it ; but yon see, Ben, what 1 have come to. I shall have to consider you my friend in the matter of that pound you lent me to pay the< education rate. By the way, they tell me that we are to be taxed to build a large University for the gentlemen's children. I would like mine to get a good education ; but then the clothes — it is true they are very thin, and the clothes won't take much stuff ; ah, the boots — those dreadful boots — there the understanding is taxed to find how to keep the poor little soles off the ground ; it does seem to me that the taxes could be more equalised.