A YORKSHIREMAN ON AUSTRALIA.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3115, 11 February 1879, Page 1

A YORKSHIREMAN ON AUSTRALIA.

A gentleman named Joseph Robinson, who a few years ago went to New Zealand, from Bradford, and who has lately been making a tour 'through part, of the Australian continent, .".. partly "for health, and partly for wealth,' 1 has writt#n to a friend in Dewsbury, # letter from M«l----bourne, from which we are permitted to extract the following :^This is as plea* sant a city as every I risited. Part of it much resembles Leeds, bat- it it better built, and there is no black Bmoke r nor any part" of ruriike dirty Hunslet. Tram cars flit along the broad. streets every minute, buggies fly along, drawn by some f ofthe ( finest light cattle you ever. saw. There is is; some heavy traffic, but draught horses are not up to our Canterbury (New Zealand), standard and are a long way behind, what you Have in Yorkshire; still they are hardy, fuljgrf pluck and spirit, and are more kindly treated than similar animals We in England; On the other hand I consider the riding hacks are hardly used, except those of the better class. . '. . The Austria-

lian people, and by them I mean the inhabitants of Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania; are the right sort to get on, something'like my people in New Zealand. They have not as much bounce as the Yankee. They have not as much brag. They have, however, more manliness and truth than all the Yankees that ever chewed a plug. You have a sample of them in the 'eleven cricketers that have gone to do battle in old England. The telegraphed reports, though short, are read with such interest that it is amusing to witness, I was at an hotel in Little Collins street yesterday, and in four rooms on' business in the course of three hours, and all the talk in each was on the wonderful success the * boys ' were having. They say ' Australia first, and old England against the world.' It doos nifjnii tf BfiS itfiTlw.

•f-kt^ymT'fe^^'^ faHSeoid country, and to know that hearts here beat as strongly 9,'illi love of the dear little islaud as does' |my own. It is the same- with men that were born here. I was talking with one at Hobson's Bay about a fortnight ago, and he told me the dearest wish he had was to go to Waterford, wbere his father and mother were born, and then to Derby, where they' Uved several years. lie seemed able to talk by '-he hour about the Trent, Nottingham, Man^ eld» Sheffield, Dore* daJe, and Bukton, though ijehasn-verbeen out of Australia, but they art' ™nctlfi, e. d to him by hearing- of them! u °m ?. Ig parents. He afco, has a strong desn!* T? see Dublin and Windsor Castle, and he says he intends, if* &oid* wills, 1 to sail for London by one of the Orienti line of steamers in April; and stay in England and Ireland all summer: <. .] . You asked me if I had eier come across any Ybrkshirdmen/ Plenty. In Sydney I met Edward Senior, wlio formerly lived'''in''Bradford.'" This last week I was called: oh by two young men from jHalifax, who are both in the wool trade, brothers,, I think, by their appearance; and, when I was talking aiew days since, in a shop where I casually met a person that came over in the steamer I Sid from New Zealand, the proprietor; of the eitablishment said, ' Excuse me, air, but you are'from Yorkshire.' I replied, 'so are you :' and he said, 'Yes, I once lived in Uatley.: We had alshat aboui people we both knew. lanr to/call on him again. His name is Lee ; I think he is from some part of Soothill. I was in Ballarat, and I saw some "men from your part, and another in- Gastlemaine, "who was employed at a blanket or a cloth mill. He told me, I recollect,,.that,trade was good, and thait he expected some friends from Dcwsbury every 1 day. . . . There is a grand* prospect {or this country, people havd room to move and grow. 'J'hey are not as tightly

packed together as they are at home. It is a good country for the agricultural labourer, the blacksmith, the joiner, the wheelwright, the mason, and the mechanic, but it is better for the farmer that brings a few hundreds with him, and for the gentleman-farmer with his two or three thousand pounds. Still I like Uesv Zealand better; the climate is more like what I have been accustomed to at home, with few fogs, no black smoke, and no leadcoloured skies."