"THE VAGABOND" ON OTAGO HOSPITALITY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1487, 19 September 1883, Page 2

"THE VAGABOND" ON OTAGO HOSPITALITY.

'♦ '— In a late number of the " Australasian" " The Vagabond" thus compares the manner of his treatment by Dunedin and Christchurch people : 1 did not write it at the time, but now that the bitterness is past I must place on record that, •as a rule, nowhere in the colonies have I met with such a lack of hospitality, such a generally cold community, and such a grasping greediness to get every cent and dollar out of the stranger as in the Province of Qtago. I have done every credit to' the beauties of Dnnedin, to the pushing enterprise of its merchants' and to the kindness received from old' 1 Victorians and others who had known me beyond the reas. But for the rest ot Otago—l suppose that if a man lives there twenty years, and that he is known to have a good bank balance the people will thaw to him. But they are not spontaneous to the stranger; quite other than so are " the old identities." When I left Dunedin for my trip through the Southern Lake district, a gentleman to whom I am under great obligation for courtesies which have made my path pleasant in New Zealand kindly interested himself to obtain me letters of introduction to station holders or managers, Ia any other part of the world I should consider the manner in which these letters were often received an insult both to the introducer and myself. The secret wab let out by one squatter, who gave me a kind and cordial reception, but said: "We don't want you here writing about the country. We don't want travellers nor tourists, nor settlers here, —we just want to be let alone." This is the spirit of the "old identity," of which I have heard, but i thought it waa long since extinct. They want to be left alone with the rabbits 1 I for one will gladly so leave them. However, I determined never to pre-, j sent another letter of introduction is ' New Zealand. How different &ere in Canterbury I With the exception of the knight of the scales, I did not know a soul here. Yet friends sprang up on every side. The peeple here am spontaneous; they warm to you and you warm to them, From : Br i Jalias von Haast, 0.M.G., the Nestor of th« Museum ; from clubdom and ofEcaaldom ; from the arch and the warriors of the Press, I receive big hearty welcomes, all - the more atriking after the social chillings of Otago. Dunedin is a beautiful city, its people are wideawake and know how to make momey ; but I wonld prefer to pass my days in the English city—Christchurch, by the Avon^