OUR RAMBLING REPORTER.

Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 7, 28 March 1868, Page 3

OUR RAMBLING REPORTER.

Your correspondent in last week's issue was very humorous. I had a good laugh over my " sleep on Thistle Down " — I should say a somewhat restless sleep. I need Hardly say you are quite at liberty to insert anything in your paper reflecting upon my. rambles. With yourself, I am only glad — may I say. flattered I—to1 — to see people taking some notice of my offhand scribbles. I merely state what I see and hear ; and if I should see with a jaundiced eye, and represent things in tainted colors, or hear reports which, if publuhjd, might be a little unpleasant to yrtfomepeople^why, you must use your r judgment, and suppress what is necessary. Now, sir, to reply to " A Poor Cockatoo." As to the cost of the bridge, I know nothing about it, and only through your columns gave a little wider circulation to a report, which I thought by being mooted in a public manner, might possibly bring the truth to light. Your correspondent merely makes an assertion, that the cost of the bridge* did not amount to anything like £50 ; but he does not bring forward any evidence to support him in his assertion. The most curious part of his letter, however, is that where he accuses me of making <> f»l»e statements, whereas I made no

statements whatever ; but simply expressed, as a report what I heard as a report. So, where the false statement can be, it would require one like « A Poor Cockatoo," well up in "wit and wrangler's logic," to discover. I would remark, that reports have sometimes, though not always, some gram* « Jf "™ .nixed up with them ; and I think there •s more truth than alloy in the report in further thinks that I forget that the gravel heaps have made the landlords' paddocks. Far be it from me to overlook the significance of the gravel heaps. I see in them the mainspring of our colonisation. In the upcountry districts^ where the foot of man might not have, trod for centuries to come, mayhap nWer, we. have the rich land bringing forth its increase, in the shape of fruitful Tfields, supplying the wanta, of man and beast. Instead of indulging in a melancholy fit, as your correspondent appears to think,, 1 rejoiced that these verj, gravel heaps had accomplished what rotst have been the design of a wise ProvidWe, namely, the cultivation of the land ; and on that account I am a very strong advocate of the agricultural lease system, believing it to be the wisest system the Government have yet devised for opening up and finally settling the country, and making the land teemwith a large and prosperous population, every one sitting under his own vine and fig tree, none daring to make him ataid. I have~ been obliged, in justice to'myself, to ramble from my ramble, in ieplying to ' A poor Cocka- ! too." I amsorry, for his own sake and i mine too, tbt he did not give you his name, so thit I might have availed myself of the peasure of accepting his invitation to seethe " mare's nest.' The otheiday, I took a stroll round by Wetheriones ; and in passing the place, I g*e your correspondent Old Peter Pipen call by the way, and handed him you- letter of introduction. He received me as a friend whom he had known for yers, and treated me with the greatest hosjtality. He is one of those jolly, open-barted old gentlemen that weoftenreaiof in novels and history, but seldom met with in private life. He is a great had for spinning yarns ; and as jon listen to him patiently, not necessarily conenting to all his says, he will amuse ytt on many subjects. Like most old gerilemen, he is a little crotchety,—has afew pet ideas and schemes. The proposedschool at Wetherstones is now uppeimot in his thoughts ; in fact, he told me hehad sent a letter on that subject for fou to publish this week. He thinks Wfeherstones school should be ■a district schol. This, I think, mnst be one of his cro'tiiets. I don't think there is another marin Wetherstones dissatisfied with thelecision of the Education Board. Frontal I can learn, they were rather satisfie&hat the Board had granted their applittion almost as soon as it was made. 6d Peter is very wild at the Major for ibporting to the Government that thehue cement was rushed, as that was the ply reason the Government gave for withholding a subsidy of £150, which- would proved a great boon to the locality, h opening up the cement much sooner tan it is likely to be opened. What the Majr described as a nush, old Peter told meVas simply a little bit of a squabble betw<&n two or three miners, as to which had tb prior claim to a certain part of the gaund ; and because the Major had bees repeatei'ly assailed by these miners, h» had clothed his representation to the xovernment of this petty affair in languagtbearing all the importance of a rush, T,Mch has resulted"in the Government's dejsion above referred to.