LONG BUSH.

Southland Times, Issue 1692, 21 January 1873, Page 2

LONG BUSH.

— « (from our owx cobkespondewt.) The long-coutiaued drought has been at last succeeded by weather of a very different kind — wind, rain, hail, thunder, and lightning. The rain has, lam afraid, come too late to be of any benefit to the turnip crop, which was sown at the com inencement of the dry reason, and much of which has never undergone th© process of germiuation. Oats, especially those sown in spring, are not looking well, but may yet, if the present storm is followed oy genial weather, improve both in straw and grain. Jn our gardens and orchards fruit of all descriptions promises to be most abundant, and it your Nelson correspondent, who calls us " fruitless i Southlanders," were t<> pay a visit to Mr Swale's, or Mr Jamea, M' Kay's, or Mr Barclay 'B orchards — in the last of which he will see a large apple tree bending under the weight of thousands of beautiful aud well-formed fruit — he will have good reason for changing his opinion. On Thursday evening last Mr Westbrooke gave an address in the schoolroom here on the subject of Good Tetnplarism. The address was au exceedingly interesting and practical one, and the attention of the audience was well sustained throughout. I have not yet heard ot any steps being taken to form a lodge here. The school year closed at Christmas with fifty- two pupils on the register — a large number when the sparseneaa of the population is taken into account, and when it is compared with 1871, the number for that year only reaching fifteen. On Friday evening the school committee held their last meeting to wind

up the affairs of the pisfc year, an <i on Monday the members of the committee, and officials for the current year, were ■» duly re elected. ■-* Stk'h of. your readers as are fond of Btudyin^ the " curiosities of literature*," mr*y perhaps remember a letter and a document in a recent, nurvber of the Times, headed " Post Office Mismanagement at "Woodlands." From some abortive attempts at wit in the former, I was led to conclude that some remarks of mine were aimed at. Having looked through a file of the Times, I have failed to discover any communication, of mine on the subject ; the only thing approaching to it consists in the statement of some facts in regard to the defectireness of the postal arrangements of the district — a subject of a very different nature, and one \vh eh engaged the attention of two meetings here last winter. I? some of my remarks were offensive/to certain parties, I can only say that they were necessary to prove my position, for such and for no other purpose were they made. I had aa little idea of drawing down on my devoted head the anathemas of post office offici:lism, or of encountering the frowns of pseudo-friendship, as I had of their causing the dethronement of the Shah of Persia. Ten of those who appended their names to the document disapproved of its publication, and knew nothing whatever of the letter. Had the writer or writers of the letter been actuated by candor and neighborly feelinsr. our friendship might still have been undiminiahed, and our mutual confidence unimpaired. Had they imitated the I manly course pursued by Mr George Dawson, who appended his own name to a complaint of the accuracy of the report of the ploughing match dinner, or better still, if they had come as they ought to have done and reasoned the matter, a common understanding might have been arrived at. The apothegm of Dean Swift, to say nothing of a higher standard, might have been put into practice — " A man should never be ashamed to own ho has been in the wrong — which is but saying in other words that he is wiser to day than he was yesterday." But this was not the role they wished to play. Their object was evidently a very unworthy and a very unneighborly action — by keeping the docu nent aa secret as possible so ac to make it appear that " I had overshot Ihe mark," and put me to the inconvenience of making a biweekly pilgrimage to Woodlands for my letters — while they were to rejoice in the favor conceded to them of having' their leefcrary correspondence cent down to them as formerly. Had the writer oip| ; writers belonged to another district, I v would not have, remained silent till now, but as I have reason to believe that they are tny neighbors and quondam friends, I deem it sufficient for the present to say that whiie I disapprove of their crooked policy, I shall endeavor to regard it (a difficult- task) in the light of that charity " which thinketh no evil," and which leads to the forgiveness of the wrongdoer not only " seven times, but seventy times seven."