There were too, a few pioneers like the Deans and Rhodes—men of enterprise and resource, or they would not have been there, Nature’s own selection of strong hands for an advance guard. Also a few Australian squatters who brought valuable experience to aid the newly landed settlers in the practical work of colonization. Altogether in the early fifties, the community was a united family; the members rendering each other mutual assistance, and always ready to give a hand to help a newcomer. The arrival of a party of disappointed diggers from Melbourne was the first wave of a new stream of emigration, which gradually altered the characteristics of the settlement. The diggers were rolling stones, rough, adventurous men from all parts of the world.
One great trouble to the early settlers was the lack of fencing. In 1854, out of 4,000,000 acres in Canterbury, only 7,000 acres were fenced, and the result was that cattle of all sorts strayed at large. The many Cattle Trespass Bills of the Provincial Council bore witness to the extent of the trouble.
About this time, there appeared in a Wellington newspaper, an amusing series of pen portraits of the members of the House of Representatives; in one of them, describing Mr. John Hall, it was said that he had a curious habit when speaking of constantly rising on tiptoe. The writer went on to say that he had noticed the same peculiarity in other Canterbury members, and hazarded the conjecture that it arose through the flatness of the Canterbury Plains, and the consequent necessity of a strained attitude when looking for sheep amongst the tussocks.
Another story from Mr. Sewell’s diary is worth telling, as illustrating both the cattle trespass difficulty, and the general life of the period:—
Mrs. Sewell had a mule lent to her, “a quiet, respectable animal, safe for a lady to ride.” The mule
