Town or Country.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1985, 28 March 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

Town or Country.

Put down in a judicial frame of mind the relative advantages of town and country, and strike a balance ; your ledger page will read something like this : In the country, nature : iv the city, human nature. In the country, quiet ; in the oity, activity. In the country, vegetation; in the city, emulation. In the country, leisure, but no advantages; in the city, advantages,' but no leisure. In the country, danger of rusting out ; in the city, certainty of wearing out. In the country, life sometimes wearisomely slow ; in the city, life always painfully fast. In the country you make friends, in the oity acquaintances ; in the country you know all but a few neighbors, in the oity jostle aginst innumerable strangers; in the country you live in undress, in the city you are always on dress parade ; in the country you rest, in the city you work ; the country is God's Sabbath, the city man's weekday. The country ia God-made, the city man-made ; in the country are birds, in the city orchestras ; in the country flowers, in the oity dresses ; in the country sunsets, in the city art collections ; in the country stars, in the city gas-lights. Strike your balance. The English folk are wiser than the Americans ; they liva in the country and go to town ; Americans live in town and go to the country. The rush of the age is townw&rd. Rural life is at a discount. "Country oousins" are a pretty jest. "Countrified " is a term Df 'eproaoh. Town and city populations are on

the increase ; rnral homes on the decrease and with them home-life. For homes are expensive luxuries in town ; hotels, restaurants boarding-houses, flats, tenements, afford substitutes. We raise a protest o the inevitabi tendencj, knowing it will useless. We assure our country reader that they are better off than tbeir envied city cousins. The country is the place"to live in. The country makdS men , the cities ufes them up.