DUNEDIN DESCRIBED BY AN IRISH NEW CHUM.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2165, 25 February 1880, Page 2

DUNEDIN DESCRIBED BY AN IRISH NEW CHUM.

The following amusing yet truthful description of Dunedin appears in a letter from a new arrival in Now Zealand, published in the Ballymena “Observer” (Belfast) of Dee. 6“Dunedin is the largest and wealthiest city in New Zealand, and was made so by'the goldfields in the province, which brought over a large number of people from Victoria and other places. The main streets are called Princes and George, about a mile in length, and contain a few fair shops very badly stoclced to a home idea, and most frightful charges, reallj r a right-down robbery; trifling little things worth about sixpence, they aslc half a crown for, and all on the same plan. Swindling people in Dunedin is thought nothing of, for the simple reason that there is such a lot of silly, soft, and ignorantqualityouthere from country places at Home. Everybody considers himself very smart, and that accounts for one outwitting the other. There are, of course honest and respectable people here, but they arc few and far between, and generally hold themselves aloof from the riff-raff of colonial societies. There arc a number of pretty walks about Dunedin, but only two drives, which get stale in time. The harbor and the port are connected by rail. All the English ships lie down there, and thus cause Dunedin much inconvenience. The bar at the entrance of the harbor is very bad, and ships very often bump on entering, not often on going out as they have not much to take away. There is a miserable cricket ground on a small patch near the city. The Botanical Gardens are well kept, but arc very small. There arc no end of suburbs with grand homos in all directions, and some few houses are pitched in pleasant places ; but, generally speaking,thehouses are wretchedly mean and shabby, and the draughts through the cracks would almost kill a polar bear. The climate of Dunedin is very wet and cold in winter, and windy in summer, and thei’e is a strong similarity between people and climate, both equally cold and chilling, which has a very rebellious effect on the hilarity of Irish people. The great bulk are of Scottish origion of the worst t\ r pe. and indeed the English are not much better. It would really seem as if the very scum of Great Britain j

emigrated, and the good remains. The people of Dunedin, a few private families excepted, are, without exception, the meanest, the worst, the most depraved, and the most ignorant set I have ever come in contact with. Being originally the dregs and sweepings of Home towns, little else could be expected. But the impudent airs that some of the young snobs give themselves is almost intolerable to decent people from Home; - The Dunedin' colonial: is a fearful egotist and bully, aud .when he is sat upon by English pluck" and open manliness he cringes before you like a coward. The women are infinately worse than the men, and excel all creation in vulgarity, coddish pride, and bombastic impudence, and a general degraded and depraved nature. Nothing gives these vulgar upstarts more pleasure than snubbing respectable and inoffensive new-comers, although one can easily see the the lurking jealousy that they try to hide, and the cringing servility if they think anything can be gained by being sweet and oily in manner. In a word, they are “ ill-bred hypocrites.”