OTAGO'S ANNIVERSARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 70, 24 March 1926, Page 16

OTAGO'S ANNIVERSARY.

THE 78th. CEIiEBRATIOH. I A FINE RECORD. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, Tuesday. The ship John Wickliffe, the first of the two vessels that brought out the pioneers of the Otago settlement, arrived at Port Chalmers on March 23, 1848. To-day was therefore the 78th anniversary of the founding of the settlement. It was observed as a holiday. It is appropriate to recall an observation made by an American naval officer when the fleet was here recently. "You are too modest," he said. "It is only a little over 70 years since the first settlers # ,arrived, and you have built a modern city and a civilised province. If we Americans had done as much in the time -we would have told the wide world about it. New York took 200 years to do what you have done in 70." Active signs of holiday-making were the flying of flags and the moving about of trams, buses and trains to suit the demands of those who wanted to get •way for picnics. The town otherwise tad a Sabbath quietude.