THEN AND NOW.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 302, 19 December 1914, Page 4

THEN AND NOW.

“The amazing changes which have come to pass in ocean travel since the foundations of civilised settlement were laid in this island is one of the modern miracles which must deeply impress those who give thought to the story of Canterbury, whose sixtyfourth birthday is being celebrated today,” remarks the Lyttelton Times of December 16th. “Great as is the change which has come over the face of these Plains since that day of 1850 when the Pilgrims, with their swags on their backs, looked down from the narrow ridge of the Port Hills and saw a huge, unfenced, untilled waste of tussock and flax and cabbage-tree stretching far away to the Alpine horizon, the transformation in the means of transit between the Old Lantl and the new is in no degree less marvellous. Excursionists who board a steam flier such as the Maori, or passengers who book their berths on one or other of the ten thousand ton liners for London, and fret their souls and the patience of the stewards over very trifling annoyances, might do worse than try to imagine what their lots would have been on the little Charlotte Jane, which dropped anchor in Lyttelton harbor on December Kith, 1850. The Charlotte Jane and her consorts in the fleet of ‘the first four ships’ were wooden sailing vessels and not clipper sailers at that. The largest of the four, the Sir George Seymour, was not uiorp than 850 tuns register ; the

Charlotte Jane was only 720 tons, and into the cabins and the ’tween-decks of these old-fashioned craft were packed nearly 750 passengers. The Charlotte Jane brought 154 passengers, the Randolph (701 tons) brought 210 passengers, the Sir George Seymour 227, and the barque Cressy'(72o tons) had 155 on board.”