CHIPS AND MANSES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 212, 22 February 1872, Page 5

CHIPS AND MANSES.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, — I have just bean taking a quiet stroll over portions of the Otago Goldfields, partly for the good of my health, combined with a little business. I arrived in that old-established town, the Dunstan, and the first evening I remained there I felt very much fatigued, and on that account I went to bed at rather an early hour. "When I awoke in tho morning, I looked at my watch and found it was past nine o'clock. I made a very hurried dress of it, fully expecting to get the rounds of the kitchen from the good wife, through me, perhaps, being the means of keeping the cook to such a late hour, as I thought, with the breakfast ; and while I was in the ace ot making this apology to the landlady, she very kindly interrupted me before I had half finished by saying, "All. right; you are in plenty of time for breakfast! We have had no coal from the Dunstan pit for the last six weeks.'* " How is that ?" I enquired. " Well, the pit has been almost full of water. Some people down about the Camp use, or waste, so much water for their gardens, that Holt, the proprietor of the coal pit, cannot get enough to turn his water wheel ; and I really cannot tetl you when we may get any more coals. Of course Holt brings up coals from Manuherikia, as he says, just to oblige his best customers, which I believe to be quite true, and charges 4s. per bag for them. Now, it does not pay these dull times to give 4s. the bag for coalf, so I have just made up my mind to send John the cook every morning to gather chips to burn in the stove. I hear John in the kitchen now; he must have returned with the chips ; so the breakfast will be on the table in the course of an hour." I looked at my watch, and it was just a quarter past ten o'clock, so I determined to take a walk down the flat. ,In the course of my stroll I came up to a woman whose countenance denoted that she was a daughter of the.Emerald Isle. She had a horse with her, and two sacks were strapped to his back. After passing the time of day with her, I asked her what she had got in the bags. " Chips," she replied. " Holt has not given us any coal for the last four weeks, and the. devil knows when we are going to get l a bit at all from him. And the chins, sure which were so beautiful and plentiful, are as scarce now as a " good prospect of gold." I enquired what sort of chips they were, as no timber seemed to be about. With a hearty laugh at my ignorance, she replied, "Don't you know what a buffalo chip is?- Sure, they are the dhrappings from the cows dried wid &he sun." - While -I was*- conversing- with the

.yfomau, I could see, a short distance fppm where we were standing, a yery fine-looking house with a verandah all round it. I asked who it belonged to. " That is the Presbyterian Manse; and alovelv bouse it once was." "The Presbyterian Manse?" I enquired; ?' what 1 reasons were .assigned for ehosuiir such' an isolated site' to build such. "a .fine and expensive house up ? " £i.The devil a know I know," said my i Milesian friend; '* but you have just been spaking right — a purtylot o' men they were altogether, to fix the manse in that spot. But I may tell you the Duns ( tan and Manu'ierikia cup-of tea-men had rrnny a good fight before it was 'fixed there at all. At last a cup'-of-.tea-inan from the Manuherikia; named Mr. Sield, said that was Jghe'besfc spot for'the manse, so they all agreed/ * I believe that was the way 'that fine house was fite-d the>'e, after :they*haJ spent £840 upon it. But that is not the worst of it, sir ; they - got a clergyman and put him injto that fine house, Mr. Ross, a fine man — God be good to' him— and they almost starved him ; and- had it not been for the Alexandra 'people he would have starved altogether ; but he has left some time ago, so the Presbyterians lias' not got any parson at all no\y on the Dunstan ; and it serves the Clyde part of them right, after the way they served poor Mr. Rosa But I believe 'they wi.ll' soon have' another one- -at least so I.' in told. '' There was a meetin * cf the Mmu'ierikia cup-of-tea-men tho other night with Mr. Ltlliday. I think he is going home, and they want him to hire a clergyman 'or them, and send him out quick. lam sure it was all arranged right about their new clergyman, because a friend was just after telling me she was wakened about five, o'clock in the morning wid the cup-of-tea-men singing t'te fail end of "Auld Lang Syne." Oh asking w'lat tie committee mem doing wit'i the manse, and if jb'iere was no person living in tho house nor looking after it at all, my infonnrint "aid none except her c ( "'-ts.' '" I always find thorn in tihe kitchen in th«» morning," said she; "if I lock the kitahen door they jump through the window, which is all the sam 9. ' "' Previous to having had this conversation with my female friend I had heard something strange about the site chosen for the Dimstan Presbyterir.n Manse. However, I went over to inspect tbe main building and garden.' After looking all over the valuable property, I could arrive at no other 'conclusion than a more cruel thing I had never 3eeri before. There is' property to the amount of £810 just at the mercy of the wind and weather and four-footed beasts of the field, belonging to a Christian church, haying ruling elders and a responsible committee. - Tiicre it is, un tenanted and ujicared, far. So [far as I know, _wJ}D|3 t J ! thehouss six goats jumpecf fWm v the jritchen, the stable door' was standing 'wide' open and partially blown down, part of the iron blown off the verandah, and everything else in a dilapidated condition ; and as for the large garden once substantially fenced and' well stocked with fruit and ornamental^ tree:,' endless pages of paper would not give a minute description of the state" it is m. ' v ' I left' with a sorrowful heart for Presbyterian property in the Dunstan district. — I am, &c\, ' '

" '■ 'A PRESBYTERIAN. Clyde, 13th February.