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Otago Witness, Issue 523, 7 December 1861, Page 2

s! j<?enti:ncnti'], but (he limited space which can i be afVo.-ded us in consequence oi'our accident* [J "j \v:ir is us to be brief. Of ours^lvos we may rem inurk that the fire, although causing u.s a ■e. itm«? loss might have done in much more 7|d.i'n:ige, and we have every reason to he thauk- , t ''f"l thnt it was no worse. "We lsavc m;:ny of x t our fellow townsmen, strangers, the military. i and the police, to thank i\>v the exertions suc-| ii- ccssfully made on our behalf, and the sympa-| it thy expressed for us has been such a^ >r hut] we had a bad opihiun of the world. Jf would have removed it. We have now i >l to ask the indulgence of our subscribers until! ' we have h-id time lo put matters in good work- •^ ing order, bid j'ist nvide additions to our buildings, materials, and staff, and we were in r hopes, ere this, to have fulfilled the protrude! j. that we had made to our subscribers of re-, forms in the arrangements of our journal! s But, alas, we could not foresee events. For-! ? tuiiately a lot of plant an 1 material is on itsj v way to us from Melbourne, and in a week o:[ • two the Witness will not only assume its pris- :; time form, but we trust will improve oa it.

'| IN MEM iRIAM. iWiiat every one ha* bejn predicting for the ! la«*t twelve years has at last come to pass. iThe city of Dunecl n has been visited with. the earl calamity of a great fire. We use tlisj • i term "great" relatively, the destruction ofj '| property in Otngo by this means having been! ! l heretofore trifling. Looking at the hrgej 'i amount of money invented in wooden buiid-| i ings in the citj' anrl the value of property con-| tamed in these flimsy erections, the d imagesustained, and ihc cxttnt oft he tire, are nothing to what may with certainty he expected, un-j less po:ne energetic measures are taken to j provide protection against the ravages of so terrible a foe. The loss, however, of upwards of £! 0,000 worth of property by a few individuals i? a serious one, and is much to he regretted. The sincerity of our remarks on this latter point will scarcely he doubted, seeing that the misfortune has fallen heavily upon us, pnd has, as our readers will observe,' shorn u<* for a time of our fur pr (portions, j But in these days of gold, with Escorts of thousanls of ounces arriving weekly from, the diggings, the loss of £10,000 by a fire will, we fear, be looked upon by the public generally as a tr;flc A few years since such a loss would have been con-idercd as soraethinj a\vTa\ ; now, we presume, our loss will be viewed, ai our spirited little con-! tempoi ary, the Daily Times, sug^ctp, as; affording us the opportunity of being jolly under croditabU' circumstances ; a philosophy wfcich we are by no means inclined to despise, perhrr,* the more readily as there is no alternative loft U3. Indued, "were it otherwise, the; conduct of our energetic contemporary would | shame us lVom any desponding. He, ere yet!: the flames had subsided in the burning citadel, i like a skilful GvaieraVmadegiiod M&J&ml£ an 'l, with thr7f< T &?T.Tmui:uenal had entrench- L ed khn-elf in a new position from whence to' ( defy the enemy. We must confess to have!, been rather surprised to find the Daily Timt>s, \ ere yet the smoke had cleared away, appearing i with a full, true, and particular account of its I own destruction ; certainly with somewhat of' {a shattered appearance, bespeaking haste and'! I almost redolent of lire. One naturally turned}] the sheet over to see if the corners were noti scorched, but they werenot. Thisenergy,how- ( ever, mu.:h as it is to be admired, is terri'tle, ■ and we must claim the privilege which has! ( attached to men of all ag.\s, of looking back:with fond eyes to the times which have 1 parsed, and picturing them as a golden era.ji Where are those happy d iys when we worked p if we liked, or were idle if it suited vs — when we could with propriety announce to our readers that we should not publish our next * issue for three days after the usual time, because we were particularly busy with some- j thin.? else ? Alis! Ala?! they are gone : the, public must have their weekly, nay, daily meal of intelligence ; printers must havejj "copy," and on we must go with the stream jl of time — But the fire ! the fire ! — ah ! we had i almo-t forgotten the fire— if a person can be ! supposed to have forgotten that which is put- i ting h ; in to momentary inconvenience byji ha\ing consumed almost everything he re- ' quires constantly to lay his hands upon; — * well, the full, true, and particular account of ( the extensive fire, &c, will be foun 1 iii j another pirt of our present issue. Its origin j is a mystery, and will, we presume, ever 5 remain so. Its effect is, however, apparent i enough; it has swept off all the building on i tho^e two allotments of land, the property of * the late Cnptain Cargill, our first Superinten- J dent; including the Witness office, Cargill' and Co.'s store, Shand's bakery. Pollock's butcher's shop, and the shop of Simpson, ' v bootmaker to her Majesty." All. except the < first mentioned, were "modern" ediiices, hay- , ing been erected within the la^t four years, to|; meet the increased demand for business accom-j: modation. For the information of those ofjl our country readers (and here we especially i< allude to the ladies) who have not been to ' town for some yea s, we may state that the l once pretty garden attached to the late Cap- l tain CargilVs residence had been backed up A to the modern street line and built upon. l The Witness office was originally Captain Cargill's residence, and although sadly dese- f crated by its conversion to its late use, it wasr still a memento of the early days of Otago, ail connecting link between the past and present, \\ which the rude hand of the devouring' t element has swept away. Most of our eai ly s settlers have experienced the hospitality of t the New Zealand Company's Agent and our ( . first Superintendent beneath that roof. Sir George Grey, our present Governor, during the period of his former time of office, had , been a guest there, but it is all gone now be- c fore the hand of ruthless reformers. We re- t gret too, to have to chronicle the destruction } !of the earlier files of the Witness, and the t whole of those of our predecessor the Otago t Nrws. Unless therefore some of our settlers l have preserved copies of the first newspaper published in Otauo, and the earlier portions of ' the Witness, they are lo«t to posterity, and a . blank has been made in the history of Otago which it will be impossible to fill up. It would \ almost seem as if all the early associations — alii the primitive institutions" of Otago— -werejji doomed to pas 3 nwny. We might he:ome,j