COLONIAL PLUCK.

Manawatu Times, Volume III, Issue 43, 21 May 1879, Page 2

COLONIAL PLUCK.

It is pretty well known and conceded that Colonial bbys are: far ahead of th eir English brothers m determination, endurance, and pluck. Of ■; course we are notgoing to offend John Bull's amour propre by asserting that English men are wanting,' m the last commodity, ;but we; do defiantly state that Colonial youths reach maturity years before those at Home, and that even at an early age they exhibit a wonderful ! foresight and shrewdness m avoiding danger, ; with a corresponding facility m -escaping | therefrQm. when once iri it. This of courseis easily accounted f oifby the early age at which boys m the colonies are called upon to fill the places and act the parts of men j but that the wiil and self-reliance is innate, without any such experience, is by the following facts of the truth of. which we are prepared to vouch. A well-knawn resident of Marton some Bhort time since e.ent one of his boys to England to school, but it would appear, that the chilli's experiences were of such a 'nature as to make him long for fraadom and his; ; beloved, home at the Antipodes. 'Although but just entering up,on his teens the plucky littlt fellow determined to escape from his bondage, and work hia way back the' -sixteen thousand" miles, and with that intention started off to tramp ltd London without a penny m his pocket, Arrived at that. Mo-dpr-n Babylon; he succeeded m ingratiating himself with the captain of a vessel trading . to Melbourne; who m raturh for the child's' services as "Jimmy Ducks, " gave him a' passage to Wellinj'tph m one of the steamers. But even then, so near hqme and, happiness, he found himself still a stranger, penniless and-without' help, untU a captain of one of the Wanganui steamers gave him .a., lift to that town. Unfortu-. riateiy for 1 the child,' there were" ifo more vessels to accept *ervice| in liet\of passage, -^-ras there were only the^ railfand the -xoad to chosa whereby to reach horne — and the little fellow was about girding up Eis loins for another tramp. of- thirty mile3,-.wnen he stopped ••in ft*ont of a."shop. the, name of whose, proprietor wag familiar, .to him. Acting uppn the spi\r 6$ thanioment ha' entered and told his tale to the. m^.n— an : old friend of* his' father-—^wh.6 escoiited ,lllol^o* the Btation, pjlacecl. him ma firsfcr.elas9 caiv riage, with a ticket fopcMartonj and two hours later, m, thesdarknesß of- night, the brave little wanderer was knocking at his door. We not Dictu]f» the.

wonder and surprise of the astonished parents when the'child of not thirteen, whom they fondly imagined was being carefully trained up at Home, presented himself with hands hardened .with manual toil, and clothes begrimed, and greased, and smoked by his not over choice 1 labor j or the painful eagerness with which they listened to the story of the little man, proud of his energy arid his exploits. Such is the stuff of whiclit colonial pioneers are made, and the material which hew empires out of the desert and the waste.