DUNEDIN.

Bruce Herald, Volume III, Issue 73, 31 August 1865, Page 4

DUNEDIN.

(From our own Correspondent.) Monday, 28th August, 1865. We-have had nearly a week of magnificent clear frosty weather, bracing and healthy, and in consequence a general . air of activity prevails. While there is, just at present] an abeyance in the numbers going to Hokitika, the accounts received from the West Coast generally continue good, and people are bnly wailing on till . the weather gets a shade warmer. The steamer Bruce left on Tuesday, \ however, with 72 passengers at £8 a head (a most; extravagant charge), and she was to call j at the Bluff for more. '.'■■' It tends to no ultimate good, but the reverse? that the state of trade and commerce in Dunedin has for many months been bad, and but for the export of goods to Hokitika would gradually have been growing worse. Jn point . of fact, there is no denying that at present . Dunedin has completely outgrown itself. ; She has more lawyers, more doctors, more merchants, more everybody than she can support ; and her Supreme Court can furnish a lengthened bankruptcy list, amply corroborative ol my statement. But if" as I for one sincerely hope, there is shortly to be a large drain of her population to the West Coast, it will be the best event that has happened for the prosperity of Dunedin for many a day. Let any one read the monthly newspaper summaries for Europe, irom December last : including the present month, and it will be found that the general state of trade and commerce has, as a whole, been anything but good. Yet each day's newspaper contains glowing «ccounts from nearly all our own coldfields, while dav after day I see. the hardy, uncouth-looking digger, swag on back, arrive in town to take , the first steamer to the West Coast ! • Granted that the unmarried digger has no '.permanent home, and. that, married or single ■ he is a being easily persuaded to go away to L new ground, correctly reported to be very rich and productive, the question then arises L —Are ail these glowing statements about our 1 own goldfields, their quartz reef's, want of L wages men, at from L3 : los to- L5 and L6 per week, &c, exaggerated by the press, or by its goldfields' correspondents ? One thing is apr parent, and that- is that the quantity of general merchandise sent up country "from Dunedin has fpr many months past been on .the decrease ' The r speedy opening up of our own West Coast, and the, expected discovery of a gold ! field, will ■ doubtless bring about a much de--1 sired reaction in trading- and ' commercial matters, and the sooner the better. \ , - Observable on all hands is the deplorable i half-finished condition of streets in ourjeity .' "and its suburbs, while schemes have from jtime tp rl time been ; publicly :proelain)ed which would ' lead- ; the mere -stranger to believe that theire is abundance of work for all , comers.,. The. com.-. mencement of great !' knd "VnQjU'cK' needed iim-

provements about to be begun, such as the drainage of the city, the bringing in of water, &c, lie dormant at present, and no one tan tell when these absolutely necessary improve* ments are really to^commence. Truly, there has been strango and stupid bungling in some quarter in the past! Here, for instance, is the Stuart-street jetty, built regardless of expense, and at a time when the price: of labor was high, now a receptacle for boatloads of firewood, and now again, of an odd steamer out of repair! the newßattray-street jetty, -with all its -plenciid proportions and new appliances, lying idle as on the day it quitted the contractors' hands months ago! the JN r ew"Zealand Exhiuition Buiiding, and all its outward belongings, speaking trumpet-tongued 10 a halfstarved labouring population, that the £25,000 it cost might almost as well have been buried deep in Dunedin Bay ! while all the time we walk through half-iorined streets, across irregular squares" and octagons, up breakneck highways, and along many-holed pavements, to the perpetual danger of "ankle spraining and on wet days to the utter dis^iist of crinoline and pantaloons! It is an old saying that 'new brooms sweep clean,' and if one may judge from the reports of our new City Corporation meetings, in which the condition of streets, &c, has been made the subject of action, another winter will not be allowed to pass similar to the street condition of the one from which n re have just emerged. The Provincial Secretary of Canterbury has, I observe, made the important official announcement that the road between Ly ttelton and Hokitika via Chrihtchurch 'is now open for a distance of 105. miles by coach, and that the remainder of the road, can be performed on horseback without difficulty;" and that within three months the entire road will be ppen;for coachand dray traffic. This is good news to intending overland travellersWere it not for the very tamety-conceivedl and worse executed illustrations, our 'Dunedinl Punch 'would speedily gain a great and de-l served popularity. The writing, on the whole, is aboye the average, and to any one fully alive to Dunedin and up-country affairs, the hits are excellent. Strange, that in Dunedin, we have no artist to -give us better woodcuts! The illustrations are awfully thick and indist'mct, and while it is pleasurable to know that the ideas sought to be conveyed are good in prose, their illustration in wood.is miserable, Notwithstanding that ,the management spare neither expense nor active exertion to make the Princess Theatre a source of nightly attrao tion, the audiences: have L not been nearly as good as was expected. But money is money here at present, I assue you; aud it i- held! with a hitherto unusually firm grip by its for-l tunate owner. A nev/ and quite original (?)l burlesque (all burlesques hitherto have beenl quite original translations arid adaptations) byl Mr Farjeon, of the ' Otago Daily Times, 3 istol be: produced to-night at the theatre. It ill called ' Faust/ and is founded on Gounod'sl recent opera of that name. I A grand amateur concert was held on Satur-I day afternoon in the Exhibition Building, iol aid of the Organ Fund of St. Paul's Church,! and was attended by; about 400 persons. Mnl Mum ford (Miss Julia Matthews), Mrs Mit-I cn'ell,~anbther professional, and. ia young ladn whose name I did not hear, sang very finely,! and received well-merited encores. I Yesterday was most truly a keep-in-tbe-l house day, it having poured 'from early mo™ till dewy eve,' but to-day is again fine anil clear. I The fast little steamer Tuapeka, which, ill consequence of a supposed want of traffic bel stowed upon it by the settlers on the banks™ the Molyneux, had ceased to ply upon tbiil river, is now lying at the Rattray street jetljl here, getting some trifling paint work donel previous to her departure for the scene of hs! former labors. >he owner and the settlenl have come to terms —the settlers aretopafl for carriage one-third the rate per ton in coul parison with what they did by land carriage! The Provincial Government grants a year)]! subsidy of and >he owners of the steamsß Golden" Age and Peninsula pay .£SOO togiß her out of -their'way. On the east and \«W of this magnificent river, large tracts of inn proved and improvable arable land, and tfl finest sheep breeding pastures in the whoß province exi3t. Not the slightest doutiß therefore, can exist for a moment, that tbiß fine and commodious little steamer will now permanently, bear along the bosom of tfl mighty and majestic river the varied prodml annually reared by the richness of the soil aftfl the growing practical agricultural sagacity<■ man. .-,..'...'. I