A PIONEER’S REMINISCENCES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1775, 12 January 1918, Page 2

A PIONEER’S REMINISCENCES.

THOSE residents who came out to New Zealand from the Old Country in sailing vessels many, many years ago will he interested in a letter from Mr H. Billens which appeared in Tuesday’s issue of the Manawatu Standard. Mr Billens wrote: “Fif-ty-nine years ago this evening our ship dropped anchor in Pori Levy, outside Lyttelton Harbour, to await for the pilot, and on the following morning we weighed anchor for the last time, to heal up the harbour against a sou’-wester, arriving oil' the (own in the afternoon. Three hundred and fifty immigrants cooped up in a 1,000-ton ship for 112 days, regaled with salt horse and pork, houilli, and blue mouldy biscuits (fresh from the hold swarming with cockroaches and centipedes), lovely smelling bilge water from the hogsheads at the bottom of the hold, fresh five months ago, my kingdom for a slice of fresh bread and dripping, washed down with a drink of water (minus the effluvium) —it is quite appetising to think back of the preserved potatoes, the porridge, and the rice, with only a picture of a cow to mix with them. Yet we got. used to it, for were we not going to the Avonderful land of New Zealand! And truly in those days it was the land of freedom, though there were no bikes nor motor cars —only an old steamer about once a week and an English mail once a month. No telegraph nor “phones,’ no postal delivery, and practically no rates or taxes —yet plenty to eat, and the Crimean and Indian wars all finished. There were very few holidays, but we lived! Yes, and we were satisfied. We could walk the streets with safety and without being scared out of our lives every moment by the screech and groans of dangermachines. Yet there was no poverty nor charitable aid societies —and for every contented mind there was peace and plenty, and no ‘l.W.W.’s,’ while soap-boX orators had not evolutionised. We may live now in more enlightened times, yet we were happy and contented then. Whether wo arc really better off to-day than in the ‘good old times’ is problematical. Perhaps just now we have a little more to think about!”