In preparing the book for publication I have been materially helped by friends in both hemispheres. My thanks are specially due to Miss Colborne-Veel, of Christ-church, N.Z., for copying some of Butler's early contributions to THE PRESS, and in particular for her kindness in allowing me to make use of her notes on "The English Cricketers"; to Mr. A. T. Bartholomew for his courtesy in allowing me to reprint his article on "Butler and the Simeonites," which originally appeared in THE CAMBRIDGE MAGAZINE of 1 March, 1913, and throws so interesting a light upon a certain passage in THE WAY OF ALL FLESH. The article is here reprinted by the kind permission of the editor and proprietor of THE CAMBRIDGE MAGAZINE; to Mr. J. F. Harris for his generous assistance in tracing and copying several of Butler's early contributions to THE EAGLE; to Mr. W. H. Triggs, the editor of THE PRESS, for allowing me to make use of much interesting matter relating to Butler that has appeared in the columns of that journal; and lastly to Mr. Henry Festing Jones, whose help and counsel have been as invaluable to me in preparing this volume for the Press as they have been in past years in the case of the other books by Butler that I have been privileged to edit. R. A. STREATFEILD. PREFACE [By the Rev. Thomas Butler] The writer of the following pages, having resolved on emigrating to New Zealand, took his passage in the ill-fated ship Burmah, which never reached her destination, and is believed to have perished with all on board. His berth was chosen, and the passage-money paid, when important alterations were made in the arrangements of the vessel, in order to make room for some stock which was being sent out to the Canterbury Settlement. The space left for the accommodation of the passengers being thus curtailed, and the comforts of the voyage seeming likely to be much diminished, the writer was most providentially induced to change his ship, and, a few weeks later, secured a berth in another vessel. The work is compiled from the actual letters and journal of a young emigrant, with extracts from two papers contributed by him to the Eagle, a periodical issued by some of the members of St. John's College, Cambridge, at which the writer took his degree. This variety in the sources from which the materials are put together must be the apology for some defects in their connection and coherence. It is hoped also that the circumstances of bodily fatigue and actual difficulty under which they were often written, will excuse many faults of style.