Burke Manuscript

Burke Manuscript: Page 149

Transcript

Old Canterbury

Relentless time is slaughtering the old Pilgrims and the men of the fifties and sixties. One by one they travel. The old Scythe bearer has laid low George Braund Woodman, an early pioneer, and an old sport. A carpenter, pushing, energetic, he drifted into road contracting, and the streets of Christchurch and the roads surrounding, were then familiar with the name of Woodman & Wright; and the money so well earned, was well invested in the fat lands of Ellesmere. The present Gladstone, called him its first landlord, under the name of the Devonshire Arms, and, in the old house, in pre-licensing days, foregathered to their miniature club all the elite of the old Canterbury swells. There could be seen Watts Russell, Creyke, the Mallocks, Lances, Tancred, Clifford, Weld, Hall, Ward, Domett, settlers and visitors, the old pilgrims and their chums. From there the club migrated thirty years ago, to its present abode, where every visitor, worth inviting, has been entertained; Sir Charles Dilke, the man of many experiences, and Anthony Trollope, the immortaliser of Australian “blowing”; Lord Lyttelton (Gladstone’s friend) and Mr Selfe, the London Magistrate; and many others, Governors, officials and globe trotters. Those were the times, the grand old times, with none of your modern Millar and Parkerism and union boycotts, but a homely and contented set of the old sort, picking, shovelling, levelling, wheelbarrowing, with a cask of old Packer’s, or Dick Taylor’s Colonial on tap, within sight, for general use, out of a good tin pannican, thus keeping their spirits at a merry flow and making contentment reign. They were the old originals, full of British muscle, beef and beer; none of your high heeled, snipey, colonial cockneys, with their endless discontent, affiliations, rules and regulations.