M. CHEVALIER'S SKETCHES OF THE MIDDLE ISLAND.

West Coast Times, Issue 236, 25 June 1866, Page 2

M. CHEVALIER'S SKETCHES OF THE MIDDLE ISLAND.

FROM THE LYTTELTON TIMES, JUNE 21.

Neither Now Zealand as a whole, nor Canterbury as a particular province, was very creditably represented in the London Exhibition of 1862. On such an occasion the want df variety in products, and the scantiness of the higher elements of refinement and civilization make a new colony's inferiority to the older countries of the world only too apparent. It is impossible to pack up and forward to another land specimens of the many .compensations' whioli colonial life affords— ita freshness 8f feeling, its claims upon the resources of the individual, its growth of towns and villages and hamlets — more rapid and yet more enduring than the growth of the trees of the forost. Looks of wool and lumps of coal are very excellent in their way. They are good material foundations on which to build our hopes for the social fabric of the future; but they aro neither attractive nor impressive in the present time Seen alone, and unrelieved by objects whioh appeal to our, ideas of taste or of comfort, they may be positively repulsive. They seem to tell of a country where nvmey may be made; but where no man will think of settling down who can avoid it, any more than he would of settling down in a gold-digger's hut. There is a prospect of Canterbury and Otago being made to appear to some advantage in the French Exposition of 1867, through the sketches of M. Chevalier. Wo understand that this gentleman proposes issuing a work illustrative of the scenery of the Middle Island, somewhat similar to that published by Mr George F.^Angus in the year 1846, of scenes in the North Island. M. Chevalier's work will be on a considerably larger scale, and will include somewhere about 120 views, executed in chromo- lithography. Though probably issuing these through a London publisher, he intends exhibiting the original paintings and sketches in Paris ; by which means he will secure a wider publioity for them, and at • the same time more favor even in England itself. People at home are still so mucli acoustomed to defer to continental authority in, matters of taste, but there is no doubt but that the paintings, which shall have passed successfully through the ordeal of Paris criticism, will bear a higher character and secure a larger share of public favor in England than if they had not been submitted to it.

The Provincial Government mado small, allowance to M. Chevalier, about enough to defray his actual expenses while resident amongst us for the purposes of his great work. We trust that the public will not be backward in affording him that countenance and support, which his ability as an artist, and the subject he is engaged upon, bespeak at our hands. Without the certainty of a considerable number of local subscribers, it is impossible that M. Chevalier can obtain any publisher to undertake the production of so costly a work, whose name would be a sufficient guarantee for its faithful and oreditable execution. He is surely entitled to something more than immunity from risk in completing q, work which must cost him a good portion of, his best years as an artist. 'His abilities have already been proved in what he has done for the comparatively tamer scenery of Australia.

A man has just died in Cambridgeshire, at tho age of forty-four yoaro, who had, from the ago^ of flvo years, a propensity or insatiable desire for drinking oolu water. Ho continued drinking tho amazing quantity of fourteen quarts every twenty-four hours until a short timo beforo his death; . l '>