If They Are In Earnest, They Are Certain To Do Well; If
Not, They Had Better Be Idle At Home Than Here.
Idle men in this
country are pretty sure to take to drinking.
Whether men are rich or
poor, there seems to be far greater tendency towards drink here than at
home; and sheep farmers, as soon as they get things pretty straight and
can afford to leave off working themselves, are apt to turn drunkards,
unless they have a taste for intellectual employments. They find time
hang heavy on their hands, and, unknown almost to themselves, fall into
the practice of drinking, till it becomes a habit. I am no teetotaller,
and do not want to moralise unnecessarily; still it is impossible, after
a few months' residence in the settlement, not to be struck with the
facts I have written above.
I should be loth to advise any gentleman to come out here unless he have
either money and an average share of good sense, or else a large amount
of proper self-respect and strength of purpose. If a young man goes out
to friends, on an arrangement definitely settled before he leaves
England, he is at any rate certain of employment and of a home upon his
landing here; but if he lands friendless, or simply the bearer of a few
letters of introduction, obtained from second or third hand - because his
cousin knew somebody who had a friend who had married a lady whose
nephew was somewhere in New Zealand - he has no very enviable look-out
upon his arrival.
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