THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 325, 3 October 1874, Page 2

THE W EE K .

I suppose there is n certain amount of satisfaction, when you are in trouble, or suffering from any great inconvenience, in knowing tbat your neighbors are worse off ihan yourself. The utter selfishness of such a feeling is apparent, but still I fear tbat so it is. For example: Our weather has of late been simply disgraceful, and all Nelsouians who pride themselves upon the delightful climate of this part of the colony, bave reason lo be thoroughly well ashamed of the conduct of the wind and rain during the first three or four •days of the current week, but, soaked as were their clothes with the unwonted downpour, muddy, wet, and uncomfortable os were their boota as they passed from the street iuto some hospitable shelter;, I believe .that each 'one would forget his own little troubles, upon taking up the newspaper and perusing the telegrams that bave poured in frora every province, and almost every district, in the colony, relating bow much more furiously it has been, blowing, and how much heavier haft been the rain elsewhere. Such a week of downright miserable weather, I suppose, has seldom been experienced in New 'Zealand before, and we in Nelson may think ourselves exceedingly fortunate that beyond a wet jacket, aud a general sense of discomfort caused by {For continuation see fourth page)

the rain, wind, and mad with which we are uneccustomed to deal in each -quantities, we have had little else to complain of. Bat if any townsman should feel himself specially aggrieved by the late disagreeable weather, I would recommend him to take a trip into, the? Waimeas, andi revel there in ! the scenery presented to him. Everything . washed beau tif oily clean, meadows looking fresh and rich with the fast-growing grass; the young corn sprouting in every direction, and in some places, where it was earliest sown, actual^ attempting to pat on that wavy appearance with which all who do not jead , the whole of their lives in town street* are familar; quick hedges burst* ing into leaf ;, the willows clad in the daintiest tint of pale green that they 8880 me between the Isf of January and ibe 3 tat Of December — -I say let anyone ia,dispp*ed to grumble at the late rams take a drive of a few miles into the country, and he will return to his wtorlp in. ,town a more cheerful, and a nwre contented man. Such at least is my experience. t ■ - >s Froin the above it will be seen that 2 have recently indulged in an out-of-town excursion, , and, ia the course of it, it, jiyaa my. lot to wander along one of the bya roads that intersect the Waimea plains. - I was walking along thoughtfully, and meditating upon the olfi-;dny9j;when, whether on -foot, on horseback, or in one of those primitive conveyances, so seldoajfgeen now a-days — a' bollock dray — it was open to the traveller to . sttike a bee line from one ' point to another, no matter how many miles might intervene between the two, when something caused me to rajse my eyes from the ground on which they had been intently fixed, whereupon I saw immediately >in front of me the following alarming-notice painted in huge black lei^rs.dn a white board fixed to a post Bbme^en feet high, "Look ovi: fob the Engine." The reminiscences of bygone dags fled before that white post, that while board, and those black letters, and unexpectedly I found myseif face to ! face with things as they are and not as they were. The transition, of thought from those times when we •travelled two-and-a-half miles per day "by bullock dray, and received our English mails by sailing ships at intervals of six months or so, to the new position of affairs when trains fly along atthi rater of thirty miles an hour, and San FranciecOj mails arrive with praisewortby^regolarity every twenty-eight days, instantaneous. The Immig^tjpn, .ftipd Public Works Act, with an us numerous clauses, seemed to flp(ser from that white post, as I s^w jta first-fruite in Ne!§on, the Foxhill railway, cross the road before me, aqd; •jnvqlontarjly, I halted to allow tvpm to that engine, against which I was warned, to fly past. But it did not come, and although I solemnly smoked two whple pipes of tobacco before venturing to cross the raised way, I could, see no smoke, no steam, and could hear no rattle, either of the express; or luggage train, ia the distance. And then there seemed to sound upon my ears, as wafted from a distance, the words, "The Nelson and Toxbill line is to be proceeded with leisurely." I felt that I had allowed myself to bo made a fool of by th^ifudden glimpse I had caught of the white post and black letters, nevertheless, I could not refrain from giving vent to a quiet laugh as I pursued my way across the line when I reflected opon the cutting irony displayed in posting up on a railway along which no train was likely to travel for at least thirteen months, those monitory: words, "Look out for the Eogine " After walking on for a few yards, I could not help looking back upon the spot where I bad been brought to so sudden a standstill, and there on another post that I had scarcely observed, on the opposite side of the bye-Toad, was another white board, updo ' wbricb, from my new point of viesrV I read in huge letters the word " Stop." But I didn't stop, for I did nob feel in the humor to be taken in twice in one day. Is that same word "3top" : to be posted up in refer-enea-to the railway at the present terminus- «£> the line, a mile or two this side of Foxhill ? If so it might just as well have been stuck up long ago on the mud-flat at the junction of Washington and Toi-toi Valleys, as designating the Alpha and Omega — the beginning and the end — of the railway syetem in this part of the Nelson province. I have conceived a sudden affection for the Takafea people. I never was in that part in my life, and probably never shall be, unless I receive a special invitation to attend the opening of the tramway upon which the residents in that district appear to have BBt their hearts, but, for all that, 1 cannot help admiring their pluck and determination. They want a portion of the Middle Island railway fund to be spent there upon the conetruction of a certain tramway, of the merits of which I know, nothing, but this I do know, that out of the very limited f ands at the disposal of the local Road Hoard, they are prepared to expend a certain — a considerable — - portion upon surveying the route. This proves to me, a perfect stranger to their district that they are thoroughly io earnest, and that they religiously beJievG in the advantages that are to accrue from the construction of the work they advocate. By all means, tbeoq J .-say, let them have it. Tbao themselves, none are better judges of their;,waots, and the mere fact of their \ being prepared to make large, flAcrtticefi

in order to facilitate the acquisition of that whioh they desire should have considerable weight with the authorities. F.