EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26792, 8 June 1948, Page 4

EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

FROM THE FILES OF THE ©tago ©ail? ZLtmea DUNEDIN,'JUNE 8, 1863. “ The Escort returns for the past week show a good average. Tuapeka maintains its reputation as a gold field and the Wakatipu shows an improvement.” “The s.s. Airedale returned from Bluff on Sunday morning and came alongside the jetty to discharge the steam engines which had been employed in, the attempt to raise the ship Flying Mist. At Bluff the Sir William Eyre was still aground. On the way down, the Airedale was part of two days in the shelter of the Nuggets in consequence of the heavy gale from the south-west. She takes the detachment of the- 70th Regiment on board.” The Wakatipu Mail of the 30th ultimo states that the heavy rains had again raised the Shotover to nearly the same height as prevailed on the previous Sunday, though the damage could not be increased, for the devastation caused by the last flood was so sweeping as thoroughly to destroy nearly every work in progress on the river bank. A boat was carried on the shoulders of six men to Arthur’s Point, to restore the communication between the two sides of the river, interrupted by the destruction of the two bridges. “ The cost of immigration in the Province of Canterbury,” writes a Christchurch correspondent, “for the year ended March 31,1863, when 2058 statute adults were despatched from London, amounted to £26,754. Of the immigrants, 377 were sent for from the settlement and 1681 were selected in England. The ultimate cost to the Province will be little more than £2 a head, provided the promissory notes given in part payment of passage money are duly' met.” “ The Wesleyan Chapel at Port Chalmers has lately been considerably enlarged and so improved in its interior fittings as to render it a very comfortable place of worship. To the number of stores and private dwellings in the Port several additions have also lately been made, more with the effect of increasing household accommodation than of exhibiting any great architectual taste. A fish-curing establishment is among the most recent erections, and one resident has adopted the unique expedient of converting an old scow into a dwelling-house, in which he and his family live afloat after the fashion of the Chinese. In a short time will be laid the foundation stone of the Masonic hall, which is to be a handsome stone structure overlooking Mussel Bay.”