NOTES BY THE WAY.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 162, 16 March 1871, Page 5

NOTES BY THE WAY.

(By our Vagabond Reporter.)

I was fortunate enough to be able to leave Clyde the morning of the election, bo was spared the grand transformation scene of the gentle Phepherd into a* veritable M.H.R. Well, there is no accounting for taste, and not being a Duuntan elector, it is nothing to me, and I am not going to moralise. I have no doubt that they are represented quite as ■well as they deserve, and will hold a high place in Parliament amongst the constituencies. But, vo3 vietis ! poor Fraser politically extinguished — consigned to the congenial duties of the sheep yard, and afraid to meet the eye. of his venerable relative ( II oos) again ; the last straw snatched from his drowning grasp ; his fervid eloquence for ever dumb ; his

perpetual seat at the Executive table fipropriated by another. Such vrere my oughts, and such aa these, when the suit of the election reached me I suppose you will say, in your usual very polite manner, that you don't want my <c thoughts," and would prefe"r information upon men and things conveyed in intelligible language. I am sure you

have had enough " facts" from me lately, and if you swallow them all— well, ha never mind.

Everybody has travelled by Cobb, so it's no use my describing the abomination of a crowded coach on a dusty day. I should be thankful, however, to hear that my two fellow sufferers, of the digging persuasion, who were jammed with me into the same seat, had fallen in with the Water Supply Commissioner, and sincerely wish that the three infernal squalling brats, who howled the whole day, had lived in the time of Herod. We passed through Alexandra — like Clyde and Cromwell, a municipality, and celebrated for its breed of Mayors. The architecture is what one might call the tin pot style, and the houses resemble, in material and appearance, a lot of empty herring tins throw down promiscuously upon a dust heap. Here again the walls, such as they are, were flaming with "The Miner's Friend," " Down with the Squatters," and other mottoes supposed to go down with the intelligent *' miners' right electors." Shepherd must havo gone in big licka in the printing line. One would have thought the township had been papered by contract. 1 had enough of these things, and 1 turned for consolation to my immediate interior (of the coach.) It was heavy work, I admit, to start my two jammees (if I may be allowed to coin a word more expressive than circumlocution) in conversation, and then they were suspicious and not over communicative. I could not quite make up my mind whether they were successful diggers, with gold upon the conscience, or mates who Juid absconded with tho bag. " Where did you come from?" "From Bendigo reefs." " Where Avas that?" " Oh, up Cromwell way." " Any good show i" " Maybe yes, and maybe no— it all deponds.'' "Many claims paying?" "A few." This was not satisfactory. The information obtained was hardly conclusive, but still the recollection is valuable that I have met that rare animal the veritable "surly digger." Not the open hearted open handed miuer of fiction, but the rather stupid, decidedly uninteresting miner of fact. Hours passed by — we were jolted and choked, choked and dusted. We passed through the " one horse" township of Blacks, celebrated for convenient pit falls and dreariness intense, and towards afternoon alighted at Naseby, of which more anon.