OTAGO.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVI, Issue 1515, 19 April 1861, Page 5

OTAGO.

By the Stoum Bird we have received a copy of the Otago Witness of the 6th Tnstant. Gold of v nuggetty character had been found in the Ornnaru District, and ■ was causing considerable excitement down South. It was thought that a pay- ' ing gold-field had been discovered, and a rush was anticipated to take place next spring. 1 The Witness says : — " The news from the Linrlis Pass leads us k to believe that the gold field there discovered h will turn out to be a great fact. The discovery . is said to have been made l>y the Government workmen whilst engaged in constructing; the P road across Mr. McLean's run. The men ' could only work after the usual hours of labour, I as they could not procure provisions excepting > from the Government store«. It is, however, said that they made 1(K per day in the few hours of aftertime. All Oamaru is alive with the news, and considerable numbers of persons have left for the diggings; drnyloads of provisions have also been forwarded, but at this . advanced state of the season, we do not antici- » pate that much will be done before the spring. A specimen of the gold obtained has been . brought to Dunedin, consisting of coarse grains and nuggets, the largest of which i.-* about the ! size of a horse bean. This news should give I an impetus to the. sales of land at Oamaru and > the north. The Oi'A.go Gor.D Fields. — By the Lord f Ashley we have the 'Colonist' of Apiil 5, by I which we leavn that Mr. Roy, the Piovincial f Engineer, bad visited the Lindis Gold Fields, r and his icport is said io be very favourable. About 150 men were then engaged in digging, 5 aud 150 were expected to be on the field in .tli,e , course of a few days. Some of the gold has r been. sent to Melbourne for assay by Messrs. [ Dalgety, Rattray and Co.

1 ViiWttA Ooatj*Fii«i.».- i 'l'ih3 plant tot the r railway ut the Clutha coil-field, which arrived by the ' Melbourne,' was, we understand} not i in accordance with the ovict. So much of it i us could be used htls been taken by the Go* I vernment, and an adjustment of tli« price at > £816 agreed to by all parties — the Government ■ pa) ing the amount without prejudice to its right to recover the £1000 paid on Messrs. Pattern and Co.'s receipt. This unpleasant ; and dillicult matter having been so far settled, Ws/may anticipate that the coalfield will be got into working mvler immediately, and that a supply of fuel at a cheap rate will be obtained before the apjroaclung <vinter* Oi this day thirteen years since, the first body of colonists, under the leadership of the the lite Captain Car-gill, arrived by trie J:>hn Wickliff, and landed on the shores of Ot.igo, to be immediately followed by those of the same party who had started from the home countn sitnultanously in the Philip Laing Thirie.ni years is but a short period in the world's history, though a considerable part of the life of ordinary men. To thus, the old settlers of dago, it 1 has bscn a marked and eventful period — such a one as cinuot recur. Towns may grow faster the coantry more vapidly piogress, trade and commerce increase at a greatly accelerated r.tie within a like period, but the change will not be so observable as it i.s to i;s who were the lirst to breik the stillness of nature, and make the wilderness resound with the stroke of the axe. As year after year rolls by, until the last of the first colonists remains, there will yet be some o;ie who remembers Dunedin in its first picturesque beauty, wooded to the water's edge, watered by its pretty little stream, which the advance of civilization has, alas, converted' into Jittle leis than a sewer. Should that man arrive at a green old age, and sit down to contemplate and compare the present with the past, Duoedin may be a considerable city. Its first wooden shanties have giveu pLce to goodly stone edifices, such as ure already springing up in the main street of the town, awl everywhere around there may be evidence of increase of wealth and population ; but if he be a man of any sentiment, we doubt not he will look back ! with a feeling somewhat akin to regret, t iat the primitive beauty of the wilderness has passed away. Even now we must confess that we are affected with a- little of that sentimentality Everywhere around us we have the signs of progress, and the accumulation of wealth — the liax and fern-covered hills converted into dusty, hot, metalled streets— the first pretty gardens rente 1 at so much per foot- the rural simplicity of the place giving way to the bustle and turmoil of trade and commerce. In the days we cau look back upon, there was not a wheeled vehicle in the places now it is possible to indulge in the civilized luxury of being run over. YVe have a four-hovse mail coach travelling sixty miles into the conntry, to what in former days was a terra incognita. The terror of a journey over the Snowy Mountains is fast passing away, and its difficulties magnified into perils by the distance of time will afford tUe grey-headed grandfather a tal- 1 of wonder and adventure for the edifica r lion of our grand-children. Steam, electric telegraphs, and railways are sad destroyers of romance: we have the first, and the two latter we shall have before a generation has passed away. It will then become a matter of merit that; we can speak of having lived in a country where we xveve six months without hearing from any other part of the world — nearly a year ere we received news from the mother country — and a journey of twenty miles was not to be undertaken. Oh ! for the good old days of our rural simplicity, when no man paid his debts but when it suited his convenience— when we had no banks. Imagine our being nine years without a visit from a judge of the Supreme Court — when debts above £20 could not be , recovered — and when there was no crime re- ; quiring the attention of a judge and jury, and the voluntary principle was applied to our pub , lie gaol ! Now, alas .' we have banks ; bills ure . expected to be paid to the day : and crime, though not rife, is, we fear, on the increase ; at | any rate, we cannot entirely dispense with the . services of a judge. ' In exchange it may be said that the unoccu | pied waster, depasture more than half a million sheep— that we have over 20,000 head of cattle — that theie is a horse for almost every man, woman and child in the country- that in houses lands and cultivations theie are hundreds oi 1 thousands invested — that our population has ' increased from 620 to about 13,000— that our ; yearly revenue has risen from £894 12s. 4(1. to ' £36,000— that we import, pay for, and cdnsume '. £200,000 worth of British goods, in place of £11,869 —that, in fact, we are fast increasing [ in wealth ; but what is all this in comparison with the luxury and convenience of not paying your debts until you pleased, or not paying , -them at all if you were so inclined! With the advent of the Constitution Act, the primitive xsimplicity of Oiago passed away. VVe have since been setting to the work of colonization in earnest, and have year by year been accelerating our progress with remarkable rapidity. During the past year more has beeu done towards stocking the country, increasing our population, making roads, and in public, works, than has beeu effected in any like period ; but as no statistics have been collected and compiled, we are without the accurate data which has hitherto been at our disposal. One or two facts rauy, however, tend to show the strides we have made. Forty thousand sheep have been impo.ted into i the northern portion of the Province within the last six months ; aud 40,000 more have been ordered, aud are expected to urrive. The balance of immigration over emigration during the past 15 months has been 3794 souls, 1» our political life we have had equally rapid and extraordinary changes. Captuin I Cargill, the leader and founder of the Colony, l after having been at the head of'its public affairs for nearly twelve years— (luring which time we made a rapid and steady advance— retiied from i public life leaving the Colony in a moi;e prosperous state than it had ever been, with a full exchequer, and everything iif order. He died in August last universally respected. Great were the anticipations of the benefits that were to flow from the election of his successors: how completely those anticipations have failed to be realised may be learned by referring to the result of the investigation by the General Govern ment into the charges made against Mr. Me Andrew, and his removal fimn office. We have no wish to dwell unnecessarily upon. an unpleasant; subject, and it is to be hoped that his friends will see it advisable not to obtrude the aff.iir further on the attentiou of the public. The pictures of the two Superintendents might be contrasted, anil be made to form as fine a moral for our childien as Hogarth's Idle and Industrious Apprentices.