A HOME VIEW OF OTAGO'S JUBILEE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2318, 4 August 1898, Page 39

A HOME VIEW OF OTAGO'S JUBILEE.

A correspondent kindly sends us the following extract from the Forfarshire People's Journal, of the 4th June last: —

I've had sent to me by some unbeknown freen' oot by in New Zealand — nao frae Onehunga at ony rate — a enpy o' the Otago Daily Times and Witness containin' a splended acoount o' the foondin' o' the Otago settlement, its history an' development. It's tho "Jubilee Number" o' the paperie, an' my certy, it's been got up in grand &tj*lo. It's just fifty years sin' the colony o' Otago was startit — i' Uie' year auchteen hunder an' fortyaucht — an' see what it has come till i' the by-past half century I It's bigger an' mail 1 populous than some o' oor European kingdoms 'at think themsels nae sma,' drink. The ships 'at tane oot the fir^t cJeokhV o' Breetish colonists to that desert region i' the year 1848 were the Philip Laing an' the John Wickliffo, an' ii J urt Chalmers was their first Lmdin' place. The Laing was the first shippie to sot oot on the langsome an' somewhat perilous voyage o' :i I, under an' saxtcen days' saiJin'. The Wickliffe was tho first to land, but only by a very few 'oors. March the 23rd, 184-8, is the acknowledged date o' the foondation o' the colony. Though it's half a century sin' than, there are still to the fore a sma' but rapidly dimeenishin' sprinklin' o' the first arrivals. But Port Chalmers wasna to be the permanent abode o' the emigrants— their destination was Dunedin, an' thither they went an' landit on the 15th April, 1848. The enterprisin' colonists — men an' women o' them— immediately set to wark to big timmer shanties for themsel's to bide in, an judgin by the pickters o' the hoosies gi'en in the jubilee number o' the Times and Witness they maun hae been gey reel-rail lookin' erections. The auld hoosies o' fifty years syne, hooever, hae gi'en place to biggin's as big an' braw as ony we hae at hame. The early colonists o' Otago maun hae been eydent, pushin 1 fallows. Their warks bear witness to their industry au' cleverality. . Of

coorse the oreeginal batcli o' emigrants sunw begoucl to multiplee .an' replenish the newj settlement. Ship-loadfu' after ship-loaclfu' 1 o' emigrants sune followed in the wake o' tha| "Philip Laing" an' the "John Wickliffe,"-' an' what wi' the imports frae the auld kintrri an' the " multipleein' an' replenishin' "' carried oot by emigrants, auld an" new, Otajyo and its capital Dunedin sprang up as smartly as Jonah's gourd : but, unlike the ill-tomperecl prophet's vegetable product, it had nevetf shown ony predisposition to decay. The colony has prospereu amazingly frae its very heginnin', an' gif it continues to gang on as bravely as it lias dune for the last haufcentury it 'ill be as big a city as Lon'on belyve. This " Jubilee Number " o' the Times and Witness is truly a grand bit o' artistio workmanship. My readers here at hame 'ill hardly believe mo when I tell them that it gi'es portraits — real life-liko pickters they are tae — o' nao fewer than five bunder o' the men an' women wha hac played conspicuous pairta in tho foondin' an' upbiggin' o' Otago an' its capital ceety o' Dunedin. Lang, lang may this antipodean colony o' oors continue to grow an' prosper.