NEW ZEALAND HERALD. AND AUCKLAND GAZETTE. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1841.

New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette, Volume I, Issue 38, 29 December 1841, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND HERALD. AND AUCKLAND GAZETTE. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1841.

By the Antilla, from the Cape of Good Hope, the day preceeding our last publication, has ariived Mb. Lioard, the Surveyor General of this Colony. The auspicious arrival of this gentleman before a third sale of land has taken place, it is hoped will be the means of releiving the Government of many vexatious suits in the ensuing Supreme Court, which we are informed are likely to take place, to compel the Government to give to their late purchasers the full quantum of land bought by them at the sate of Town Lands in April last. We are sorry to be obliged to use the words u compel the government’’ to an act of justice, but so many instances have come to our own knowledge of parties making applications to the proper authorities to be put in possession not only of their actual allotments, but the quantity also, and who have been refused any redress, that we think it our duty to notice the subject and bring it more immediately under the notice of Mb. Ligabd, who we are led to believe, will have the disagreeable task of correcting the.gross blunders of his predecessor in office. The lithographed plan of the town, which is no w before us, would lead a stranger to suppose that Auckland was a town of some importance as well as beauty; but when the localities of the place are\.once known to him, we should imagine the conclusion he could arrive at is, that the town was mapped first and surveyed afterwards. The first glance of the map shews a dock (not a proposed one), apparently covering at least fifteen acres of ground ; but when he perceives that it extends beyond Point Britomart to nearly a fourth of the way across the Frith, he is convinced that the Bock is a creation of the imagination, and will never be accomplished. Leaving the Dock, he wades through sections one and two if it be low water (but is at a loss to find them at fall tide), until he lands in Lower Queen-street, where his progress is -stopped by the swamp, which hinders you from proceeding up the principal street of the good town of Auckland. On turning again, you are rather astonished at not finding any street at light angles, opposite Shortland Crescent, and you ascend the said misnamed Crescent (which with more propriety might have been called—Mathew’s Mount) to obtain a view of the town itself. Here you at once see that if Crescents, Quadrants, and Circuses were more required than streets at right angles, that the west end of the town was the site for these gingerbread roundabouts. Passing through Prince-street, and giving a casual glance at the Government obstructions at Waterloo Quadrant, you cannot help admiring the accuracy and precision with wnich Dutchess-street corresponds with Princestreet. Passing rapidly through Kent-street, you arrive at the Royal Crescent, or rather Quadrant —an instrument manufactured by Mathew, of Benett and Upper Queen-street, Auckland, to take the altitudes and distances of the surrounding country ; it is a quadrant with an arc of about 90 degrees. To return however to the commencement of our subject, we would earnestly and seriously recommend a new survey and plan of the town to be made forthwith, and we are persuaded that every one who has at all .considered the matter and examined the Town will be of the same opinion. A multiplicity of the allotments already sold are considerably under the quantity that has been paid for them, and many others are over, even to the extent, in more than one or two instances, of SIX perches. The allotments at present advertised for sale w e have no doubt would have been the same; but as we believe some of them are not yet surveyed (except on paper) we shall at all events hope for better doings from our new surveying staff. The farms on theTamaki are, we are informed, laid out with as many errors as the Town Lands, as well as all the other lands which have hitherto been sold. We have heard it asserted that an insufficiency of instruments in the Survey department has been the cause of some of the blunders, and we suppose this will partially account why land has been surveyed and old that did not even belong to the Government»-~~Yet such is

rea ji. tlie fact, which is a p;r oof that there is an insufficiency of linguists, if not of instruments. Independent of the errors which are apparent to every one, it is next to impossible to build a square house on any allotment, and keep the parrallel line with the street, by reason of the absurd manner in which they are laid out; and as we are not yet, nor shall be for a length of time, in a position to build brick houses, the town presents the singular appearance of a Crescent, formed by square wooden houses. This cannot now be remedied, as the mischief is done, but it may be avoided for the future by a more careful and better plan being substituted for the present one. The narrowness of the streets are another crying evil, and the formation of those horrible nujsances—sixteen and a-half feet lanes, are the means of causing the very evils which it was said to have been intended to avoid. Sly grog shops, receiving houses, and skittle grounds are therefore numerous, and will continue for many years to come to be the annoyance of the more respectable communitv who have purchased the better part of the business streets. Lower Queen street appears the only main-street of decent width, and we maintain that the others are too naarow for the due keeping of the health of the Inhabitents of a populous district. In Official Bay, the streets are not only narrower than anywhere else, but it is impossible to describe their shapes, being neither round, square, parrallel or oval. Jermyn-street is a splendid specimen of drawing straight lines, and is in keeping with the shapes of the sections in the other parts of the town, say blacks Nos. 35 to 49 (the Royal Quadrant). We have sufficiently pointed out the ill-planned manner in which the Metropolis of New Zealand is laid out, and we hope that our New SurveyorGeneral will not be backward in c ausing another survey to take place, as the eyes of the whole community are anxiously awaiting the result of Mr. Ligard’s movements, which they hope will be not only for the enlargement of the streets, but of the squaring of the unsold portions of the Town, which we are sure will not only give general satisfaction, but be themeans of preventing future lawsuits, and thus engender the good feeling which should always existed between the delegated authorities and the inhabitants of every district.