CROWN LANDS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume X, Issue 505, 8 November 1851, Page 146

CROWN LANDS.

Crown Lands are now sold in this colony under Royal Instructions issued in 1846, and which have been amended from time to I time by additional Royal Instructions. The 14th clause of the 13th chapter of the Royal Instructions of 1846, provides that no Crown land shall be alienated, either in perpetuity, or for any definite time, either by way of grant, lease, license of occupation, or otherwise gratuitously; nor except, upon, under, and subject to regulations prescribed. Additional Instructions, bearing date 13th March, 1848, provide that it shall be competent to the Governor-in-Chief, on behalf of the Crown, to alienate land in exchange for other land or lands, or in satisfaction of any equitable claim to land. Lands shall be divided into three classes, viz., town, suburban, and rural ; no rural allotment shall exceed one square mile. Rural lands are to be divided into such as are supposed, and such as are not supposed, to contain minerals. No land shall be alienated until the same shall have first been put up to sale at pub* lie auctio ; pnrovided that notice of such auction shall be given by proclamation, not more than three months nor less than one month, before the same shall take place. All land shall be put up to sale at a minimum upset price. No rural land shall be put up for sale at any minimum price less than 20s. per acre. Land supposed to contain minerals shall always exceed the before-mentioned price of 20s. an acre; the amount of such excess being from time to time determined by proclamation. It shall be competent to any person, within three years next after any auction, to become, without any further auction the purchaser of any lands so put up for sale and not then sold, by paying the upset price at which the same may have been put up to sale. Provided, that it shall be competent for the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor, with the advice of the Executive Council, instead of allowing such lands to he so purchased by any persons applying for them, to put up the same to auction ; giving such notice thereof as above provided for. Immediate payment in cash shall be the indispensable condition of all sales of Crown lands. It shall be competent for the Governor to demise rural lands containing minerals for any term of years not exceeding twenty-one; reserving to itself a Royalty of one-fifteemh of the minerals raised on such lands. Crown lands may be conveyed to any body politic or corporate gratuitously, to be holden by them in trust for public uses for which they may be reserved, and for none other. The uses for which lands may be reserved are enumerated in the 17th clause, 12th chapter, Royal Instructions, 1846.

A Biter Bit. — About lunch time, one day lately, the Ayr Observer tells us, a young gentleman entered the shop of a confectioner in a neighbouring town, and, standing at the counter, with considerable gusto discussed a pretty large start. He tendered to the good woman in change, a shilling, to pay for his repast, which she had to take to a neighbouring shop to obtain change. Left aaloen c with the viands, our friend found his appetite re. turn, and he proceeded to help himself to som e small neatly-twisted, altogether very enticing-look-ing.ginger-snaps, which lay " convenient." He had astonished twelve of these, each being only a bite, when the shop-mistress entered. The gentleman pointed to the salver by way of inquiring what was the damage, and was rather surprised by the exclamation, " Gude save us ! ye haena eaten ony o' thae snaps?" "Just twal o' them," said the youth ; " what for no ?" " What for no ! because they're medicine for bairns ; ilka yins a dose for a wean, it has twa grains o' julep, and a grain o* calomel in't ; ye've got pheesick for yince, I'm thinkin." It was enough. How much he paid, says our contemporary, or whether he paid at all, we never heard, and how he spent the afternoon, we know not, but next day he was seen wandering perturbedly through the streets, pale, lean, and sorrowful — a warning and a spectacle 1 A Lady " Resolved to bk Frxeand East." — Mrs. Bloomer, editor of the Lily, has adopted the "short dress and trousers," and says in her paper of this month that many of the women in Senaca Falls oppose the change ; others laugh ; others still are in favour ; " and many have adopted the dress." She closes the article upon the subject as follows : — " Those who think we look • queer' would do well to look back a few years, to the time when they wore ten or fifteen pounds of petticoat and bustle around the body, and balloons on their arms, and then imagine, which cut the queerest figure — they or we. We care not for the frowns of over fastidious gentlemen: we have those of better taste and less questionable morals to sustain us. If men think they would be comfortable in long, heavy skirts, let them put them on ; we have no objection. We are more comfortable without them, and so have left them off. We do not say that we shall wear this dress and no other, but we shall wear it for a common dress ; and we hope it may become so fashionable that we may wear it at all times, and in all places without being thought singular. We have already become so attached to it that we dislike changing to a long one." — Nno'JTork Pott.