A New Zealauder at Home.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 72, 24 August 1885, Page 4

A New Zealauder at Home.

The following impressions of a colonial who is now on a visit to England arc; extracted from a !• tfcer m i<,e Wanyauui Herald, and will be rwwl with interest,, You a-k me to send you my imjjivssmns of England, its people, nnd -fashions. Tue fa^hiotm are so many, so different, and so ngiy that they cannot be described, and us for my opinion of England. I think the country and the people a perfect fraud. They .«ay you can yet nice things' an-t so cheap, but itstiilc-is me. you can <jet as f»ood m Nfew Zealand and better ; they seem to send the best, things ouo of the country and keep the wor.st at Home. I think it costs less for clothing with you t.hau with us, and the shopkeepers here always cheat if they can, and try to have you m every way. Everything spoils very quickly, and it costs a small fortune for washing. Tim climate is hot as can he one day, and the next three shirts, two pair of trousers, two coats, and a waiscoat won't keep the cold out. The country looks nice and green now, nnd is pretty; the weather, too, is kapai but m a few months all will be as bare as a board, riot a tree with a lenf, except the pine trees, and you cau'f call theirs leaves. I don't wouder at people returning to New Zealand after j having lived there any time* Nodoint the larger towns and buildings are Very- wonderful and grand, but Tpreier nature's work to man's, and would give somethiug to see old Kuapehn again. All the country here has been spoilt by hi«h cultivation, being over ; -chopped with houses. Of course I i have not yet visited Wales or Scot- [ land, and can only speak of what T have s<;en m the South of England | BlackheaUi i* seven miles from the I Cifey of London, but when you walk m ihe streets you «efc great drabs of soot on you. Everything gets as black as a coal. When the snow was on the ground fora day it turned black too. You can't see a couple of miles m front of you sometimes for smoke, and one day it was so dark with smoke that flu* gas had to be lighted at midday, I spent a week , sit the farm at Tenterdm m Kent. Il was rather jolly down tboie. I wan told I should have to rough it, but as I had dessert every day and a firtj m my bed room at night, I did not see where the roughing came m. Nearly all the houses the) e are three or four hundred years old, and the church eight hundred ; it is as sound as the day it was put up oak rafters, carving, and all, There are tablets hung on the walls inside with the coats of arms of the different people of note, who have: lived nnd died iv the neighbourhood. Work of any description is very scarce here, and things much worse th;»n m New Zealand. Subscriptions are being raKed and work found for hundreds of people. I don't like London at all. It is such a cold, smoky, gloomy, ugly . place, and such a row going on. 1 1 takes about a month to get across the street, sometimes when it has taken a fortnight to get half way, you lave to wait another fortnight to do theresi, and then you can't got back. Evew vehicle comes full split round the cornets.' You won loam how to critss a street 'when you have been m London for a day or two. It is e;i<y enough to look after oneself, but it is : different m company, f had always understood that the Colonial people were a rough lot, but the English, orTrather London people beat the worst I have ever seen. On Whit ■ Monday evening I saw them m full force, and they certainly were rougher and more like larrikins than I exp cted to find iv th^ much vaunted City of London. Take it all m all, give me New Zealand, and T shall not be sorry whon I see the colony agaiu.