add that when I first came here there was a gaol with an average of fifteen inmates; to-day there is no gaol, in fact no need of one. This is not because our criminals are sent to the gaols in Christchurch or Dunedin, but because we don't manufacture them. It may be an exceptional case, but I think that all through the country prosperity has not been accompanied by corresponding crime, as so often elsewhere.
"I find it difficult to get anyone for a game of golf," said an English visitor to me, "you have an excellent course, though difficult, and many good players, but everyone seems too busy to play, except on certain days."
"Yes," I replied, "the fact is that we are all at work here, with very few exceptions; there are very few leisured folk, so games are relegated to half-holidays, or Saturday afternoons."
This I take to be a wholesome state of things. New Zealanders are keen at holiday making when the chance comes; every sort of sport flourishes, and in some instances, such as tennis and football, the fame of New Zealand is world wide. Every public holiday, and they are numerous, sees crowds of well-dressed, well-fed, sober people out for a day's pleasure. You may hear criticism,—"Is it a good sign?" My own feeling is that it is the healthy outcome of the conditions of our life; an eight hours' day for nearly all; sufficient leisure for recreation; good wages; no sweated labour; plenty of employment for all willing to work, whatever the professional agitator at the street corners may say. Compared with all one hears of the state of things in England and elsewhere, I sometimes wonder whether we are as thankful as we ought to be that "the lines are fallen unto us in pleasant places: yea, we have a goodly heritage."
