Crusts : a Settler's Fare due South. By Laurence L
Kennaway. (Sampson Low and Co.)—Mr. Kennaway went over to the Canterbury Settlement in the earlydays of that colony, and he tells his experiences in this volume, giving them, as his title indicates, in a fragmentary form, which, however, does not diminish their effectiveness. "The beginning of life on a piece of the world on which men have not yet lived is marked by one super-prominent feature,—it is, that while you are in absolute want of everything, you have about you absolutely nothing." In Canterbury they had not even what most settlers have in
superfluity,—standing timber. The story of the gradual advance from this state of utter nothingness to something really resembling the life of an old-settled country is most interesting. One of their earliest acqui- sitions was "the first church," and this, whatever secularists may say, was no small step towards civilisation. Next, and in due order, came the institution of the washerwoman. "It is an era, indeed," says the author, "when the settler ceases to be his own washerwoman." The introduction of gravy marked another era. We never thought of it before, but gravy may be said almost to differ- entiate civilised from savage cookery. Some of the detached sketches are excellent,—the tale, for instance, of how Mr. Whiffler circumvented the "silent man on the grey horse," who was bent on getting the" run" which Mr. Whiffler had set his heart on. Nor were these pains taken in vain, for the run was afterwards let for a thousand a year. In con- clusion, we congratulate Mr. Whiffler on having reached the happy stage when the olim hac meniinisse juvabit is fulfilled, and we thank him for making us sharers of his pleasure.
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