WANGANUI.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3922, 9 October 1873, Page 2

WANGANUI.

(from our own correspondent.)

The value of property may always be accepted as a fair test of the prosperity or otherwise of a district. Judged by this test, Wanganui can have very little reason to complain. A property of about 1100 acres, some eight miles from Wanganui, and a number of quarter-acre sections in the town — known as Gray's Estate — were brought to the hammer on Friday last, when the former ranged from £5 5s to £20 an acre, realising on an average £7 13s an acre ; and the latter brought from the lowest price, £50, to the highest, £396 per section. The country land is of average quality, but its value was somewhat enhanced by persons squatting upon it, who had partially grassed and fenced portions of it, in the fond hope that the owner woiild never turn up, and that they would ultimately drop into undisputed possession. In fact, the property has been a sort of "no man's land," or rather all men's land, for the last dozen years, this one and that one laying claim to pieces of it vi et artnis. so that it has given the Resident Magistrate more trouble than all the other land in the district. The appearance of Mr Burns, the manager of the National Bank of New Zealand, on the scene, armed with an indisputable power of attorney from the owner, dispelled many a covetous dream, and set at rest several impending law suits. Mr Burns wisely resolved to cut up the property into manageable lots, and refusing to treat with parties privately, he had the whole put up for sale by auction, on very liberal terms of payment, with the result I have stated. The Grays, however, have been a stirring family in their time. While some of the brothers stayed at home and poshed into a profitable business the " North British Advertiser," the first newspaper which was circulated gratuitously in Scotland, depending entirely upon advertisements for its maintenance and profits, and becoming on this principle a sort of Edinburgh institution, others of the brothers were to be found energetically employed in Victoria, India, China, and one of them in New Zealand, where he made the purchase which a few days ago turned out so profitable a speculation. Wanganui at the time was represented by a few whares, and its sections barely brought £12 a piece ; th^e country land most probably was bought at 10s an acre. Who could have foreseen the progreas which has been made, fully realising the poet's statement —

Behind the scared pquaw's birch oanoe The steamer smokeß and raves 5 And city lots are staked for sale ' Above old Maori graves

Mr Pox's Permissive Bill, even shorn of its more stringent clauses, will gradually effect a diminution of publichouses. All honor to him for his resolute stand in the face of overwhelming odds, its practical . operation will be watched with much interest by those who are anxious to promote the cause of temperance. - A certain number of publiohouses, I daresay, are necessary, —most certainly not the" large number we now have. There musfr-ba road-side inns at convenient distances ; but speaking of the latter, what a change has come over them since the time when Dr Johnson remarked that the best house a man could have was a good inn. ' Later than Dr Johnson, we have Longfellow immortalising the "road-side inn," but it , is gone ; indeed, all the cosy country inns which middle-aged people once knew, where the butter was always sweet and the eggs always fresh, have vanished as completely as the hospitable abbeys of an older era have done. The glare of modern hotels may be very fine, but we would infinitely prefer, for comfort, that homely and home-like old room, to which the wallflower and the thyme wafted their fragrance, and where one was welcomed more like a friend than a mere convenience from which to extract money. In our hotels, of course, there's "everything of the best" — gout, headache, fever, and pains in the chest ; but the plain healthy food of the old wayside inn is fast disap. pearing. Everything is very nice, but drunkenness continues as ugly as ever, and no improvement, ancient or modern, can prevent its engulphing in misery the manhood of all who fall its victims.