EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26769, 12 May 1948, Page 4

EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

FROM THE FILES OF THE ©tago S>atl£ Himes

DUNEDIN, MAY 12, 1863. ' “ The separation movement has now been before the public of New Zealand for some considerable time. We can remember the supercilious contempt with which the agitation was first treated by northern papers. It was characterised as being a presumptuous, selfish clamour for power on the part of the new population which had been attracted to New Zealand by the Otago gold discoveries. The northern press attempted to 'make out a case, of deep ingratitude against the inhabitants of the Middle Island. . . . But, give us a powerful Central Government; break down the exclusiveness of provincialism, and the provinces wilt cease to have jealous feelings towards each other. Otago will then no more excite jealousy in the Middle Island than the West Riding does in England.”

“Mr Beetham, the warden of the Wakatipu goldfield, in his last report, states that the miners 'on the Arrow and Shotover Rivers are busily engaged in building winter quarters and packing their stores. The Hit or Miss Company’s tail-race through the Arrow Flat is nearly completed, and has already enabled holders of claims on the Flat to bottom, the results of which ere highly satisfactory, as much as 50oz having been taken from the bottom of a small paddock. Mr Beetham also estimates the present population at the Arrow, township ai 450 persons; at the Arrow River and adjacent gullies at 1400; Cardrona Creek 350; Upper Shotover River 350; and the flats in the vicinity of Arrow township 200—making a total of 2700 souls.”

“We desire to draw the attention of the engineer of the Gas Company to an extensive escape of gas in the immediate vicinity of the office of this paper. Last night the effluviam arising from this cause was highly offensive, not to mention the danger of explosion thereby involved.”

“ Everybody wants to see handsome and substantial erections rising in our streets; and nobody, we should think, would complain of reasonable facilities being .afforded to those who build them. But at present they ask for, and get, most unreasonable licence. In Dunedin at the present moment there are two or three notable cases in which, because brick buildings are being erected, the footpath is blocked by bars, and the roadway cumbered with materials that will not be required for days. Our streets are narrow enough; and we do not think that there is any necessity for their being encroached upon so grievously as they are.’'