Burke Manuscript

Burke Manuscript: Page 268

Transcript

The true history of those Reserves, dear children, has yet to be written, and then you will be enabled to judge of the disinterested patriotism of some of your eminent ones. At all events this is plain as all the noses on your faces, that those men who claim so much gratitude from us, left the City of Christchurch with small reserves or resources, to be the most taxed City in the Southern Hemisphere.

In the olden days it mattered not. There was no tax gatherer. No jubilant by law maker like Mr Hawkins existed. He still vegetated at Papanui. And the roads and bridges and footpaths, such as they were, were made by a Paternal Government. Good fat contracts were to be had, and all the old lot of Smith and Blackler, and Woodman and Charley Wright, Jack Foster and Dearsley, and lots more of them, all had a dip into the dish. Some more than others. It was quite delightful to see a gang of the old boys levelling the ups and downs of what was called Cathedral Square before Godley or the trees grew, or the first stone of the Cathedral foundation put in. They did things properly then. Their tipple was Dick Taylor and they kept a moderately sized cask on the job. Dick was the forerunner of all the Wards and Mannings and Louissons, and his brewery the Phoenix, was where now is a Malt house and bottling place, in Kilmore and Victoria Streets.

Cathedral Square looked thus then. Where now is Brice’s was Miss Skillicorn’s bonnet and drapery shop, afterwards occupied as a drapery by Axup, Steward and Bell. Steward now M.H.R., next on Hereford St was the old building adjoining the N.S.Wales bank, there was living Mr Sefton Moorhouse. On the opposite side of the street, there was nodings [sic] until it got to the back of Miles’ then unbuilt store and there after came to Tombs the builders, where was a little office.