Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1870-09-01
A New zelander Mt Saratoga

Another quaint incident of the sum-
mer was to meet an Englishman, fresh
from New leland, in the crowd at Sara
toga. Ny friend Northrup, editor of the
Syracuse Courier, found him at Fort
Ticonderoga, ''froze" to him, and treated
him Hospitality He had come direct
from New Zeland-the most isolated
habitable land probably in the world
to the Sandwich Islands, thence to San
Francisco, Chicago, Montreal, and Sar-
atogo. A member of the Council, and
an attorney at Auckland, he was now,
after seventeen years absence, about to
60 straight to Yorkshire to see his friends
and fix his property. He was about
forty years of age of flowing auburn
whiskers, and a wild exuberance OF
sandy hair, tall man, well formed and
well bred, and his name was tombstone.
1t is not in the nature of an Englishman
to be enthusiastic over another man
country, but Northrup told me that he
had been coerced into an expression OF
surprise at the size of the Fort William
hotel, and that when he came to Sara
toga he said
God bless my soul why eres pair
Of taverns bigger than the other one.
suggested to him that good devise
| for the State shield of his colony would
be a New Zealander standing on a
broken arch cf London bridge. This
Englishman said he had never heard of
Macaulay's picture Of such a parsonage.
He conceived that the growth of the
/ United States over New Zealand was
solely due to the one State encouraging
1 immigration, and the other positively
forbidding it. The Pacific railroad, he
said. was very good road, indeed, but
the engineering obstacles attending the
building of it he pooh poohed. The
Rocky Mountains we're gently ascending
slopes of successive terraces, and in two
hours the whole precipitous part Of the
Sierra Navada was passed over. The
social management of the road was,
however, very repugnant to the English
man:
No privacy Nothing done to sepa-
rate the gentlemen from the incursions
of hundreds Of blarsted miners and ruff
fans. They cursed and spit, and par
AIDED their dirty, unshayed faces in the
first-class carriages, you know. 1t was
shameful. 1t was awful.
San Francisco he admitted to be
finer city than Sidney or Melbourne.
Chicago (which he pronounced with the
accent on the first syllable, Chich-agol,
he said was rousing place, built well.
Montreal he dislilled. He heard Orson
Pratt preach, and was sorely moved 20
request permission 10 reply.
New Zealand, he said was languishlng
for want of common sense government
and proximate markets. A whole sheep
could be bought there for two shillings.
TIE Panama direct subsidized line had
been taken off for want Of support.
Nevertheless he wanted me to advocate
the United States Substituting new line
to his province by way Of the Sandwich
Islands. New Zealand was the worst
taxed country in the world, having
debt Of thirty million pounds sterling,
to be borne by one hundred and fifty
| thousand population, the whole debt
created in the Maori war, which he
thought hagrantly unjust, and waged to
ret the residue lands Of the natives.
The Maoris had whipped militia and
British regulars with war clubs and
spears, ana nau not Dcth tOiiutItuf Dut
half annihilated. He considered his own
seventeen years there as good as wasted,
but was, nevertheless, going back.
Like a real Briton, he loved the aris-
toeracy, fercely denounced the Irish
Land Bill, said England was Inundated
/ by II and Englishmen ashamed Of their
country, and to my suggestion that the
laws OF entail and primogeniture ought
to be abolished, he urged a lusty defense
Of them, and said that :" the damned
commoners did not know how to use
good piece Of land" He had examined
the United States land laws, by which
land is acquired by settlers, and was sat
isfied that they were ridiculous. involved,
and, in practice, broken every day. He
thought the greatest American who ever
lived was Fennimore Cooper, and re-
GREETED that he had not the time to make
a pilgrimage TO his home and grave.
Such was my New Zealander, placidly
surveying the gay world Of Saratoga.