THE NEW YEAR.

Otago Witness, Issue 893, 9 January 1869, Page 8

THE NEW YE AR.

(Prom th© Daily Times, Jan. 1.) Before these lines are read by the public the year 1869 will be fairly launched and on its way to the inevitable end, and probably by most its predecessor — of which as we write the remaining hours are rapidly dwindling down to minutes and the minutes to that infinitesimal space known as a moment— will be forgotten. We who write and those of us who shall read this article have seen the end o? a year eventful in our future history, either for good or for ill. When it dawned we were living a life of placid content, hugging ourselves with the idea that we had crushed rebellion amongst the disaffected natives, and seen almost the last of the cruel butcheries which had blotted the fair page of our past. How we have been rudely and violently awakened from our dream of fancied eecurity to find ourselves involved in a war which may possibly prove one of extermination is notorious. The future historian, writing of the year which has past, will perforce have to tell of the ruthless massacres of unoffending women and innocent children, and when he has done his task cannot but lay down his pen with a sigh. We, who live at a distance from the scene of so much suffering and so much sorrow, can form but a vague concep'ion of the dread memories which will be connected with the year 3 68 in many hapless families. Stern men, unused to bitter tears, weep for the homes which are no more, for the life's prospects which an mnrelenting, unthinking, savage foe has blasted; mothers cry for the little ones which are not; •wives mourn the husbands whose places know them no more ; sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters, seek in vain for the kindred, who lie placidly at rest beneath the sward of the still unreclaimed forest. So, with hearts surcharged with grief, and with minds brooding over dark schemes of vengeance, they tarn down the page of the year which has passed from them for ever, and commence. — let us hope, bravely, manfully, and reliantly — a new life with the coming of a new time. It is not for us to offer consolation to these bereaved ones. Their wounds, still bleeding as they are, can only be cured by the great Healer, as, alas ! he is the great Destroyer — Time. If we cannot console them, however, we can succour them. Our sympathy with their losses should take some other form than that of mere verbal profession. It is the holy duty of the Christian to succour the distressed, and if we are light-hearted enough, to-day to make high holiday, we should ar, leasr not forget what is due to those of our kind who are bowed in tribulation too great for expression in mere words. Whether we have not forgotten what is due to ourselves as a people too much already, is a question we may fairly ask ourselves. Further, we may sternly inquire whether we shall continue to forget. At the threshold of the New Year on which we stand, we, the dwellers on that threshold, should be fain to put it to ourselves, whether we are certain that before the history of another year has to be told, we may not stand in. need of the helping hands we have been asked to stretch out to our neighbours. Enough of these gloomy reflections. Let us trust that we will not i « the future forget our duty to the past. "We may fairly look forward to the year which is to come with hope and trust — hope that peace will ere long be restored to our much-troubled sister island ; trust in our own resources aa a country and a people. We know that we are tut the germs of a great nation, and those of us who are spared to do it will watch with curiosity our development from our present state of chrysalis, till we emerge into the full vi^or of a well seasoned and tried maturity. So the New Year dawns upon us hopefully, and it will • c our own faults if we do not make the best of the opportunities it offers us. If there is mourning around us, we commence it joyfully enough. We have lail out for themselves a special programme of amusements, at which no doubt there will be quite a full holiday attendance. As if to mark our sense of the comparative holiday life we live in these Southern seas, we commence our year with closed doors, and one and all go forth to enjoy themselves. Even that mythical personage, the printer's devil, is to-day a free man, and can disport himself at his best with no fear of the coming night, amongst , the proudest "he's" of Dunedin. Weary scribblers, sick of the unvarying toil which keeps them the year round tied to a wheel more terrible than that to which Ixion was bound, are content to know that for one day in the year their labour is to cease — their brains to be at rest. Perhaps, to-day, your publican will be your only busy man ; the rest of our community -will give themselves up un-

feignedly to pleasure and to the enjoyment of the quickly-fleeting hour. May this day be but the harbinger of many equally aa happy to those who with us to-day see he dawn of the year 1869.