of
his own; he will be married, or able to marry, his earnings will suffice
for existence, while every pound saved and invested in property will be
growing, doubling, and quadrupling itself for his age and his children.
There is something to work for and hope for here: independence,
contentment, and competence. It is not a stern struggle from year's end
to year's end, with naught at the finish but a paltry pension,
dependence on others, or the workhouse. The gentleman-colonist we are
talking of is working for a _home_, and, long before his term of life
draws to its close, he will find himself, if not rich, at any rate, in
the possession of more comfort and happiness than he could hope for in
the old country.

I am not an emigration-tout, and have no interest in painting my picture
in too vivid colours, and in these remarks I have transgressed against
some of the ordinary colonial views on the subject; but I have done so
with intention, because I consider them not entirely in the right. The
colonist says--we don't want gentlemen here, we want MEN! But he forgets
that the unfortunate individual he disparages has often more real
manhood at bottom than the class below him. Therefore, the middle-class
emigrant must remember the qualities most required in him--pluck,
energy, and resolution.

I have met many middle-class men in the colony, and all contrived to
bear out the view I have put forward by their own condition. Those who
come to grief do so from their own failings and deficiencies. Some growl
and grumble a little now and then, and think they would rather be back
in England; but, when they reflect upon the condition they would
probably be occupying at home in the ordinary course of things, they are
forced to admit that they are better off. At any rate, such bitter and
terrible distress as overtook so many thousands in Britain a year or two
ago, could scarcely fall to the lot of the same people under any
circumstances, if they were industrious colonists. But I have digressed
inordinately, and must get back to Auckland forthwith.

The barracks are empty at last, and all our fellow-voyagers have found
each his or her starting-point in the new life. Our own little party of
cuddy-passengers is dispersed as well. Some have gone off to join
friends in the country, some are gone on to distant parts of the colony,
some have gone this way or that, scattering to work in all directions;
only a couple of us are left, and it is t