PUBLIC BENEFACTIONS.

A few days ago we devoted a leading article to a brief recapitulation of nuU able acts of generoaity on tho part of wealthy and public spirited people, from which every State in Australasia, derives and will derivo for tA\ tlmo benefits, the attainment of which if left to public enterprise would have been long deferred. There are in New Zealand not a few cities and towns which owe lasting gratitude to the generosity of private benefactors. Auckland has just lost by the lamented death of Sir John Logan Campbell a warm friend of all that makes for the public good, and one who possessed to the full the disposition as well as the means to promote it in the most effective- manner. Cornwall Park, and the Campbell Creche to mention only two of Sir John's many notable gifts to the city of his adoption, are memorials which will ever keep green the name of the giver. Similarly there will be associated with Nelson as long as the city endures the name, of one of its earliest residents, Mr Thomas Cawthron, to whose unstinted liberality we owe several splendid acquisitions. This week tenders have been accepted for the construction of the Church Hill Steps and the continuation of the parapet and chains along the- unprotected portion of the Rocks road. Both these works have been long felt to be necessary, but had it not been for the- munificonco of Mr Cawthron the undertaking of them seemed sufficiently remote. The designs for the Church Steps provide for a massive and imposing structure, giving access by an easy gradient to the top of tho hill. The steps will be flanked on either side by balustrades, .and the whole, constructed of Tonga Bay granite, will bo in every way in keeping with the beautiful eminence it is to adorn. To Mr Cawthron also wo will shortly owe the line public organ which is to be installed in tho concert chamber of the School of Music, while the Institute, in the welfare of which every resident of the city is interested to a greater or less degree, has also found in Mr Cawthron ail exceptionally open-handed friend. The splendid benefactions we have mentioned, besides other directions in which Mr Cawthron has evinced a lively desire to assist in the most practical manner the progress of the city, will ever be cause for Nelson to hold him in grateful regard.