NATIONAL HISTORY

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 91, 17 April 1917, Page 9

NATIONAL HISTORY

PROGRESS OF COLLECTION. '

Steady progress is being made by the Board of Science and Art, in connection with the National Historical Collection initiated.by Die Hon. i>. W Russell, Minister of Internal Affairs. Though no, very sensational additions have been made to the collection since the gift of ' the Swainson collection, and the purchase of the Gordon collection, a steady responso is being made to the appeal for gifts sent out by the Minister. ' They are very varied these gifts, and already indicate on what broad and comprehensive Jines the National Collection •will develop. Here, for_ instance, are some ancient plan 9of what is now a thriving modern centre. They are distinguished by the delicate and masterly draughtsmanship of one who in his day and generation was "facile princeps" in his profession—the late F. A. Carrington. Mr. Carringtop ia often alluded to as the "Father of New Plymouth," and the portrait which accompanies the plan 6, shows the line type of head in which intellect and, benevolence arc equally noticeable. Portraits and handicraft such as these render the acquisition of that ilew library and art gallery which will form partfof the Dominion Museum of the future more desirable than over.

. From another source, an aged and keen-, ly interested pioneer colonist, over -90 years of age, comes a copy of the prospectus of tho Lyttelton Times, dated August, 1850, and a copy of the paper itself dated January, 1851. Among tho attrae> tions promised by tho prospectus is tho following assurance: "The Council of Colonists undertakes Iho responsibility of seeing tho paper established and continued." And again there is a good_ deal j'of perhaps unconscious humour in tho 1 assumption that "it is rot perhaps too 1 much to expect that every respectable inhabitant in the colony will become a subscriber to it immediately after- the paper shall have beon started."

In tho January issue the time-hoDourocl feature of "Poet's Corner" is filled by one who from the airy eminence of "Tho Masthead of the Randolph" apostrophises "Our First New Zealand Sunset" in glowing terms. Another still moro ancient and still more frail newspaper relic, is a, copy of tho Statesman, published in Fleetstreet, London, and bearinpr date 26th Feßruary, 1815, price 6jd. This interesting old paper contains a, lengthy note on the negotiations then proceeding with Prussiaas to the status of Saxony. 1 The copy was presented by a Wellington resident. From another source comes an offer of a sot of photographs of our now wollknown mountain and lake scenery taken before man in the shape of landscape gardeners attempted to create a foreground for tho splendour of Nature. And so the talo goes on of a great scheme patiently working in small beginnigs.