The Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VIII, Issue 502, 26 August 1857, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times.

Wednesday, August 26. Letters from emigrants are commonly considered by intending emigrants in England to supply .the most authentic information concerning the colony written from; and, accordingly, we find in books and newspapers intended to captivate the colonist that this sort of material is put prominently forward. It is not so long since most of us were ourselves in the condition of intending emigrants but that we can remember our anxious search for this kind of information, and the implicit confidence we placed in the statements therein contained. The homely English, the free and easy style, and, above all, the obliterated Christian names, were vouchers for accuracy. But what carried perfect conviction with it, what extorted our confidence, was minuteness of .detail. If the writer of the epistle which got into print gave his cabin companions' names with the vowels left out,and an exact description of the food at dinner, we thought .he furnished most valuable information concerning the voyage; and if another told us that he wore hip gaiters and hobnails to go ashore; that he tore off the third button

getting upon the jetty ; that he had a hard mattrass and a skinny pillow at the boarding house; that he walked nine miles and saw a flax-bush, a ground lark, and a description of goose very like those in England, and gave the zoological and botanical names, we treasured up the epistle and revered the writer as a guide to New Zealand. Such of these letters as were favourable were, and still are, extensively circulated, and almost in every case returned in their printed form to the colony whence they emanated, to cause the unhappy writer much anguish of mind.

Fortunately we have the happiness of living in a colony whose advantages and prosperous condition command a certain amount of favourable comment from any reasonable and truthful letter-writter; so that when a letter written home is returned to the colony in the form alluded to, whatever blushes may suffuse the author's cheek, the public is seldom displeased with its contents. And so also, if it sometimes happens that we find a reprinted letter from a bona-fide colonist abusing the country, we can afford to smile at the assertions, and to pity the.singular hard lot- of the writer which could have forced him to depreciate the vknown excellencies of our adopted country.

These remarks are apropos to a letter unusually bitter in tone which we find at length in the columns of a leading paper in the Eastern Counties of England, and which purports to be written by a lady resident in this settlement. She lives 70 miles from town, and has to walk that distance (backwards aud forwards we suppose) through mud and water to the knees, and across three rivers. She lives where there is no cultivation, where sou-westers blow for three weeks with continual rain, where work is a perpetual necessity, and flour a constant deficiency. Were it not for the hills nothing could exist, for the winds are terrific. Farming is no good; flour is. brought from Australia and sold at a lower price than it can be produced. Everything is monstrously dear, especially ale, which costs Qd. a glass, and land, which is sold at £90 an acre at Christchurch. The place will soon become a second Ireland, and is only fit for ' transports,' for whom it would be quite sufficient punishment. And much more of a like character.

Now we can well afford to smile at the above assertions, and to pity the •■poor lady who fancies she dwells in a patent selftormenting convict establishment, as she

may well call her ideal picture. "Sixty miles from a doctor, it anything happens!" We conjecture it to be a location on the west, coast that is described. If so, we are pleased to hear that there is a great deal of plain all round it. We cannot think that it is any part of Canterbury with which we are acquainted, and we should certainly advise the lady to move with all speed to a more comfortable locality. But, smile as we may at the letter, it unfortunately contains a number of skeleton names such as used to charm our imagination at home, and a catalogue of details such as used to carry conviction to our inquiring minds ; in these we feel that poison is conveyed with fatal efficacy to the English reader- If the lady had asserted that Canterbury was a huge mountain of shifting sand, the statement might have

been doubted; but that she herself was in the habit of going " nine days without a morsel of bread or flour,'' and of walking 70 miles up to the knees in mud and water, why these, j'ou see, are facts.

We happen to know that the newspaper which contains this little narrative circulates in a part of England which has sent several emigrants to Canterbury, and from which many more might be expected to come; and we are certain that the effects of the letter will be to prejudice the settlement in the eyes of any intending emigrant who may read it. Our lady friend cannot know what mischief she has done to her adopted country; but she must beware of her imagination for the future. We are to treat one of the fair sex with severity; but we must hope that her epistle may be circulated among her acquaintances, and that she may know it. Should she feel contrition, we recommend as a penance that, whenever she writes to' England again, she shall place open before her the ' Eastern Counties Herald' of March the sth.

It may be as well again to impress upon our readers the fact that no person can vote for any Provincial election during the ensuing year who has not had his claim sent in for the roll now forming.

Claims can not be sent in later than four o'clock to-morrow evening.