People we know

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 25, 16 September 1893, Page 6

People we know

MR WILLIAM TODD

There arc few busier men in Invercargill than our local George Kobius, Mr William Todd. For the greater part of Iris time lie is either “ going ” or “ gone,” but when we dropped into nis sanctum the other day for the purpose of this sketch we found him in, and with a few minutes to spare. “ My colonial experience,” said Mr Todd, “ began in 1853, when, as a boy of cloven, I arrived in Victoria from Glasgow with my parents in the ship Sophia Burbidge. She had 200 passengers on board, and n singular feature in connection with them was that they came out in their own vessel, having arranged her purchase before leaving Home. They sold her at the end of the voyage, but the spec, the first, by the way, with which I was in any wav connected, did not prove “ a rapid road to fortune,” for the vessel only realised a sum equal in the aggregate to what the ord’nary passage money would have conic to. About a year after my arrival I went to “ the dear old Bendigo ” of the poet Bracken, and remained nearly ten years. It was a canvas town when I got there, but ten years sufficed to convert it into a city—places grew rapidly in those gold fever days. The diggers in those early times were ignorant of the value of the quartz reefs in and about Bendigo, and were in the habit of chipping off pieces from the exposed surfaces for ornaments, little dreaming that fortunes would afterwards be made from the stone. “In 1863 I left for New Zealand in the steamer Gothenburg, Captain Maekay. It was her second trip to New Biver, and we were brought up to the jetty in the little steamer the Hu by, in charge of Captain Fraser. There was no metal on the streets those days, and in some places fascines had been put clown, and the smell from the decaying brushwood of which they were composed did not remind one of Araby the Blest. To make a big jump forward, let me say here that it was the finest of perfume compared to the odour that strikes the pedestrian on. the North Hoad when an easterly wind is blowing. Those Celestials may he good gardeners, but the smell they raise is simply awful, and summer coming on too. Why on Wednesday last it was like running the gauntlet, and I saw ladies with their handkerchiefs to their noses and a look of distress on their faces, as they hurried along. But to resume. 1 pitched my tent on the Town Belt, which was then densely timbered, hut soon after left for the Lakes with a quantity of goods. The charge was then £4O per ton, and the route followed was out the East Eoad to Halfway Bush, whore IH. Mclntosh lived. From there we made 1 Mac Gibbon’s at the Mataura; then on to

[ Sydney Bill's on the other side of Glore, from | thence to Fletcher’s (now Lumsden) and on to Kingston, where we took a sailing boat to Queenstown. I kept a store there for a time, and then returned to Invercargill, | where I accepted an engagement with Mr Gr. W. Binney, who carried on an auctioneering business in the Prince of Wales rooms and yards. When he left I succeeded him in business, and, oddly enough, if I had continued there, my lease of the premises would have expired this year. My first license (you see I have it framed here) is dated Bth September, 1865, and is signed by Mr William Stuart, who was the Provincial Treasurer, for those were the old provincial days. I have held a license continuously ever since —a record that I think few can beat, or even equal in the colony. Then here is a photograph of the old place of business. The gentleman in the doorway is Mr Robert Gilmour, who is still to the fore, and then there

is John Wright, long ago dead, of “ Ripples' of Jordan ” fame ,in connection with the hotel of which Mr Rankin’s shop now forms part. That white-bearded man at the side is the old horse doctor, whom many of the old identities will still remember, and the other figures in the picture are those of your humble servant and his brother Robert, and Mr Shoobrooke, the blacksmith. . Taen came the West Coast rushes, and about 18G8 I decided to try my luck there, and, going to Hokitika, started in my own line of business. I put in about nine years there, and was thrice mayor of Hokitika. I

also had the honor of being Provincial Treasurer for a t me, but had to relinquish the position o .vii g to pressure of business engagements. “ In 1878 X resolved to return to Invercargill, and here I have remained ever since. I started in Dee street, where Mr h’odie’s establishment is, then I shifted to the corner of Esk and Kelvin streets, from there I went to the mart on the south side of Esk street, and now I am located right opposite, and likely to remain here. As you know, I believe in Southland ; I think its prospects were never better, and as far as I am personally concerned I am thinking nf making extensive additions to my premises in readiness for the good time coming. Everything connecied with fanning and agriculture is going ahead, and we have a good outlet for everything we can get out of the ground, and some day our mineral wealth will help to swell the tide of prosperity. Do I notice a change for the better in the district? Of course I do. Why a few years ago many of my clients used to come to town on foot or on horseback, I ufc now the majority of them own their buggies and other well-appointed equipages and come into the place on business bent in fine style. In old times they used to bo obliged to,some of our business companies, but now-a-days the position has been reversed, and they 7 can talk to us instead of our being able to talk to them. Well, so be it. It is better for everybody.. We are cn the up grade, sure enough ” With those cheery words ringing in our ears we took leave of our optimistic townsman, and will only add that if anyone suffers from a bad spell of the blues and wishes a speedy cure, lie should listen to the subject of this sketch at a Saturday sale. Lot him note how adroitly a moral reflection is sandwiched into a graphic description of the article under the hammer, observe the bonhomie with which bidders are treated, and hear the jokes that pass, and if dull care does not cease to irk for a time then the sufferer is beyond all ho23e.