THE CITY OF CHRISTCHURCH.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVIII, Issue 1859, 23 April 1863, Page 3

THE CITY OF CHRISTCHURCH.

The following 1 graphic picture is from tbe pen of •' Voyageur," in the New Zealander : — " 'Xhe City of Ohristchiircli cannot fail to strike every reflecting; visitor with surprise, as well because of its extent, as because of the air of inherent wealth and stability of its appearance. One recognizes its importance at a glance. There is an aspect of achieved prosperity and augumenting progress stamped on its streets and buildings. They are clean, comfortable, with that well-to-do look of substance about them that is more readily felt than described. Chrichcburch is singularly well placed on the outer border of the great Canterbury Plains, which extend inwards in an almost unbroken, but unwooded, level for more than a hundred miles in several directions. Those plains are uloined with lmluial pastures, upon WlltCll neither tree, nor fern, nor scvub is to be found' tbe pasturage, like that of Tasmania, is rife with clumps of coarse, wiry, tussockv, grass ; the soil, however, is much better covered, the feed is more abundant and luxuriant, and consequently calculated to sustaiu much larger and fatter herds and flocks.

Chvistcuroh is a handsome town, laid out with greut regularity and good ta^te, having rery much the air of a thriving English Market Town. In Cliristclaucli, as in the South generally, tie great preponderance of the buildings are of wood ; but they huve been put together with a degree of taste and solidity, not so ob» servable in other of the Provincial capitals of New Zenland. The Provincial Buildings are undoubtedly the most costly as they are unquestionably the most pretentious. They are situated on the banks of the Avon, which here is spanned by a novel kind of suspension bridge aviiilable for horse or foot passengers. The hnildings are flanked by a pretly strip of plea> | sure ground which reaches to the river with a lawn laid out in bowling green order, intersected by shady walks, and nicely planted with ornamental sluubs and evergreens. This is an agreeable appendage to the* Government offices, which are constructed partially of a red stone butprincipally of wood. I should be disposed to style its architecture as or the composite order, there being a large dash of Elizabethan, co-mingled wilb an infusion of the Saracenic, in the shape of central and angle turrets, that, like the walls, are dwarfish, full pretence, but devoid of simplicity or elegance. Low and narrow corridors, or to speak by 'the'- Card, cloisters of, the true con-' ventual gloom, traverse the internal length and breadth of the struoture ; and from these branch

off the Chambers set apart for the respective government offices, This concentration is of importance, saviDg the time that must othei* wise be wasted in passing to and from disconnected and distant offices, such as prevail in the government pigstyes of Auckland. The Provincial Council Hall is situated in this extensive range of Buildings, is that the entire machinery, of government is under immediate command. Quaintness of design prerades every architectural arrangement, internal as well as. external. The floors of the cloisters— l beg pardon—corroders — are neither boarded nor flagged ; but are paved with wooden blocks, after the fashion j of the wooden causeway attempted in London in 1840-41, The arrangemeut may be quite correct, assuredly it is fantastical. Christcburch possesses a college, an hospital a club-house, an admirable horse and carriage repository, after the manlier of the London Pantechnicon, several spacious churches, one of which parades a kind of sentinel belfry, bearing a much stronger resemblance to a Chinese pagoda, than a bell-tower for a quiet place of Protestant worship. There is a Cathedral square, in which, at no very distant period, a Cathedral will doubtless be erected. I The extent of the plain on which Christi church is founded, whilst it will admit of the almost unlimited expansion of the city, will, nevertheless, be found to prove a serious obstacle to its drainage. The site is a dead level throughout. The Avon is not only sluggish in , its course, but its bed is so surcharged with, cress and other vegetable substances as to cause (he water to be injurious to health. The summer's heat, too, is more intense than in other parts of New Zealand ; and the hot winds, or siroccos, of Australia, are by no means unknown. These are the disadvantages of Christchurch ; and with these science must wage war. All reasonable care has beeu taken to render the city as salubrious as possible. The streets are wide and airy ; the carriage ways are well metalled ; and the foot paths properly kerbed, spacious, and kept in good order. The principal street is named Colombostreet, and runs through the centre of the city. The shops are numerous and good, many of them elegant, and dressed out in true London style. Among the number, I was struck with the appearance of Apothecaries Hall, at the corner of Armagh and Colombo-streets; as well as with that of a two-story brick edifice, approaching completion, nearly opposite. The electric wire between Christchurch and Lyttelton is in full operation. Altogether, my impressions of Cbristchurch are most favourable. I regard her as Queen of the Southern cities, evincing every indication ef present prosperity, with a vast power of progressive expansion.

The Adventures op a Bankrupt. — At the Guildhall police-court on January 10, Wm, Buckwell, a railway conductor and manufacturer of artificial stone, of Greenwich, London, and of Casa Crola, Borgomanero, in Italy, was placed at the bar before Alderman Humpher}', having been brought from Mont Cenis by Haydon, a detective officer upon a warrant charging him with not surrendering to his bankruptcy on the day fixed for his last examination. Since the bankrupt has been in custody other charges have been preferred against him, for not delivering np his books of accounts, and for not making a full disclosure of his estate. The features of this case as at present disclosed, are of a somewhat extraordinary eharac-

tor. The bankrupt's trading it is alleged, commenced in .the early part of 1860, and continued down to February, 1862, when he became a bankrupt with liabilities estimated at £90.000, of which £50,000 was duo to Italian and 4540,000 to English creditors. It is further alleged that he had been engaged in constructing a railway from. Novara to Lake Orla in Italy, under a contract for £184,000; that he had received the greater portion of that amount and had not expended above £15,000 on the line; that his transactions during the year 1861 amounted to £200,000, while the assets recovered up to the present are exceedingly small, the principal portion of his property being in Italy, and that there is still a very considerable amount of property withheld from the assignees and altogether unaccounted for. The bankrupt attended several meetings, and was examined before the Commissioner in bankruptcy relative to his affairs : but as he failed to appear on the 14th of May, 1889 to pass his last examination, and evinced no intention of returning from Italy, where he had taken up hi? residence, the assignees, after a lapse of three months, obtained a warrant for his apprehension, and placed it in the hands of Haydon, of the City detectives, who being furnished with credentials from the Foreign-office, proceeded forthwith to Turin in quest of the runaway, whose place of retreat he discovered on the 7th August, I the day of his arrival. As there existed, however, no treaty of extradition between Italy and this i country, Haydon found his warrant of little avail | without the concurrence of the Italian authorities. He therefore applied to Sir James Hudson, the English Ambassador, who rendered every assistance consistent with his position, and the result was that he succeeded with the aid of a company of" carabinpors, under the direction of the Questura in arresting the further flight of the bankrupt, who waa discovered concealed between 'the ceiling and the roof of an out-building belonging to the Casa Crola at Borgomanero, and having hitn safely lodged in the criminal gaol at Turin. Here, however, was but the commencement of Haydon's difficulties, for, the authorities having secured the bankrupt, his Italian creditors exerted all their influence to prevent his extradition; bufc the government oft'ored to give him up on terms of reciprocity which Earl Russell deemed it inexpedient to accede to, and after continued negotiations and repeated delays and disappointments extending over a period of four months, Hayden at length received an intimation that the bankrupt would be conveyed to the frontier and there liberated on a certain day, and took his measures accordingly. The arrangements supposed to have been made by the Italian authorities would have given the bankrupt a clear start of Hayden had they been oar. . w«d out fta originally intondod j bUCWlelatter lost no time in gaining the frontier on the top of Mont Oenis, and there awaited the arrival of his customer. But there anew difficulty arose, for the gensdarme, in whose custody the bankrupt was, refused to liberate him until he signed a document absolving the Italian authorities from the consequences of an illegal arrest and forcible expulsion from their kingdom ; and he, equally astonished and chagrined at the presence of Haydon, inquired what would be done with him if he did not comply with the request; and on learning that he would be taken back to the gaol at Turin, he positively refused to sign his release, in the hope that he would thus finally defeat Haydon and those under whose instructions he was acting. Haydon, however, nothing daunted, inquired of a French, guide where the exact line of demarcation between France and Italy wa3 situated, and finding that all parties had, without being aware of the fact, actually crossed the frontier, he at once executed hig wavrant and arrested the bankrupt, at tho same time availing himself of the assistance of a couple of French gensdarme placed at his service by the French authorities through the intervention of Lord Cowley, our ambassador at Paris. This step rendered imminent a very serious imbroglio, for the French officers, acting on Haydon's instructions, threatened to shoot their prisoner if he attempted to escape ; and the Italian gensdarme, acting on instructions equally explicit, expressed, I ' a determi. nation not to return to Turin witliou'fc i^iui;:; This state of things lasted about h'ajf'anytioar) ; ; when the bankrupt was literally; frozen;, ou%M J j& ;; ihde6d . were the officers, all of them, ittolu^iß^fjfta'ydob, being up to their knees in snow^otf oflV6/the;highest parts of the Alps. After somfpMleying?and V;, much shivering the ! bankrupt "solyediiHellknbtliy ; { point, and elected .to accompany^Haydo^lw ; Eng»land, whiohj 1 ; ;t^jling^;;|^£c;: reached '> in s > afoty.^Argrea'ip,d l e^i of havingbeen taken in /tepp^^'tatf^^h^ge^tt^-i prisoner waafagaiii ranwnded, •;. ;5 :•:■':-< ••» ."■;&■ >££