A NEW ZEALANDER AT HOME.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2064, 10 August 1885, Page 2

A NEW ZEALANDER AT HOME.

1 The following impressions of a colonial who is iiow on a visit to England are extracted from a letter in the Wanganui Herald, and will be read with interest " You ask me to send you my impressions of England, its people and fashions. The' fashions are bo many, so different, and so ugly, that they cannot be described, and as for my opinion of England, Ithink the country and the people a perfect fraud. They say you can get nis;thiiigs, and so cheap, but it strikes me''you can get ask good in New' Zealand and better; thSffl; seem to send the best things out oftheV country and keep the worst at Home. 1 think it costs less for clothing.with you, • than with us, and the shopkeepers here always cheat if they can, and try to have you in every way. Everything spoils very quickly, and it costs a small fortune fpr& washing, The climate is hot as can be one » day, and'the next, tliree shirts, two pairs of trousers, two coats, and a waiscoat won't keep the cold out.. The' country looks nice and greon now, and is pretty; the weather, too, is kapai, but in a few months all will be as bare as a board, not a tree with a leaf, except the pine trees, and you can't call their's leaves. I don't wonder at people retuvnine: to New, Zealand , after haying lived there any time. No doubt, the larger towns and buildings are very ' wonderful and §iand, but I prefer nature's work'to-.man's, and would give some-: thing to see old Ruapehu again. , All the • country here has been spoilt by high cultivation, being over-cropped ;'with- houses. ■ * Qf course, I have not yet visited Wales or- ; Scotland, and can only speak of what I ' have Been in the South of England. Blackheath is seven miles from the City, of London, but when you walk in the.streK you get great drabs of soot on you. Eve® :: thing gets as black as a coal. When ■ ■ snow was on the ground for a day it turned black too. You can't see a couple of miles in front of you sometimes fojiA smoke, and one day it was so dark wit&Tsmoke that the gas had to be lighted at midday. I spent a week at the farm at TenterdeninKent, It was rather jolly down there. I was told 1 should have to rough it, but as I had dessert every day, ' and a fire in my bed room at night, I did not see where the roughing came in., •' Narley all the houses there are threo or ' four hundred years old, and the church eight hundred; it is as sound as the day it was put up—oak rafters, carvings, and till. There are tablets hung on the walls inside with the coats of arms of the'-,' different 'people of note who had lived' 'and died in the neighborhood. Work of ■: any description is very scarce here, and things much worse than in New Zealand, Subscriptions are being raised and work found- for hundreds of people. I don't like London at all. It is such a cold, smoky, gloomy, u?ly place, and such-a row going on. It takes about a month to got across the street; sometimes wherHfc has taken a fortnight to get half way, Jfs have to wait anflther fortnight to do 4b rest, and then you cant get back. Ev®Kk? vehicle comes comes full split past/ther corners. You soon learn how to cross a' ■ street when you have been in London for a day or two. It is easy enough to look , after oneself, but it is different in company. I had always understood that the Coionial people were a rough lot, but the English, or rather London people beat the worst I have ever seen, On Whit Monday evening I saw them in full force, and they certainly were rougher and more like larrikins than I expected to find in the much vaunted City of London. Take it all in all, give me New Zealand, and 1 shall not be sorry when I see the colony again.