Burke Manuscript

Burke Manuscript: Page 150

Transcript

Yes, times are changed. When in the early fifties, a warm hearted man like the departed Isaac Luck upon finishing his contract of a twenty by ten lock up in the Market Place for the early and beery pilgrims, invited his friends to a house warming and a ball in the establishment, just to show how nice and snug would be the future occupants. A sort of fatherly foresight, making things familiar. Yes, good old days that are gone, when Judge Stephen, fined Mr King, a solicitor, practising in his court at Wellington, £20 for giving his client bad advice. How applicable now. Yes, good old times, and what would the boycotters say to this – when the Canterbury Association clapped immigrants in Lyttelton Gaol for passage money, which they refused to pay, saying it was enough that they had come 16,000 miles to oblige the Association, without being bothered about cash.

Yet another. S.C.Moule, a quiet, reserved man, of not many words, but pleasant to meet. Once as well known as the Cathedral Tank, on the footpath in Cashel Street, where was his old dwelling and workshop, and next door was David Clarkson, the originator of Dunstable House; nearer the corner the original Birmingham and Sheffield warehouse of Edward Reece; and up and down that footpath C.E. Dampier, solicitor, G.D. Lockhart, the Union Bank, Mr John Ollivier, Inwood, the miller, Mr Mount, an eccentric of the olden days, Mr Watson, the tailor, and others of the old boys had their places of business, or abode. Most of them if they would only oblige by revisiting could tell us of that little mystery “When we have shuffled off this mortal coil”, but they will not, and we must just wait patiently. It will not be long, for what one writes about is thirty or forty years ago.