TWENTY.SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLONY.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XVII, Issue 1724, 8 February 1862, Page 6

TWENTY.SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLONY.

( From the “ New Zealand Spectator,” Jan 32,18(12.) It is twenty-two years to-day since the first settlers landed on Pitonc beach. Those of the pioneers who still are permitted to sojourn in this vale of tears on looking back to the past have many painful recollections. Like the bush that bus been laid low by the axe of the woodman, they feel themselves as solitary trees left to mark where a forest hud been. The greater number of the Pilgrim Fathers, together with their leader, Colonel Wakefield, have departed with the years that are away !

The Founder of the Colony of New Zealand himself too, though dwelling in our midst, has been confined for a number of years to the precincts of his own residence by serious bodily ailment, calmly waiting the appointed hour when he also shall belaid “in the churchyard low" beside the early settlers who have gone before; still in the midst of his affliction he rejoicesin the onward march of a country which bids fair to be, as a colonial possession, one of the brightest gems in the British diadem, feeling a conscious pride that his name, when he too shall have gone to his rest, will be handed down to posterity in the page of history ns the honored Founder of the Britain of the South.

Great changes have taken place as a matter of course in both town nnd country during the past years of the Settlement; and this anniversary is in striking contrast with the anniversaries of former years, when the early settlers, decked out in their guyesf attire, used to assemble together with the Native inhabitants, in great numbers to see the horse-racing, gingling matches, jumping in sacks, foot racing, hurling the wheelbarrow blindfolded, Maori war dunces, boat racing, canoe racing, and various minor sports that made up the programme of the bygone Anniversary day's amusements, —on the ground that is now fo'rmed into streets and covered with buildings Though we rejoice in the advance we are nitiking as a colony, and feel pleasure in the improvements that are yearly taking place, yet as “poor sons of a day," wo cannot help the painful feelings that naturally rise up in the. breast when looking back to the scenes and circumstances of the past,—to think of the fond familiar faces of the early settlers that have • gone from our gaze.’ Indulging in these painful yet pleasing reminiscences, we cannot but rejoice, on this our Twenty-Second Anniversary, at the bright future that is in immediate store for our adopted country.