EARLY DAYS IN WELLINGTON.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1629, 21 December 1912, Page 7

EARLY DAYS IN WELLINGTON.

FIRST ISSUE OF HISTORICAL JOURNAL. A warm welcome is due to an absorbingly interesting little pamphlet just published by the Early Settlors' and Historical Association of Wellington. This is the first number of the association's journal. No doubt in future issues much valuable matter will be gathered together, but the first issue has a special value of its own in its character as the beginning of the association's endeavour to rescue from forgetfulnesi before it is too late, the beginnings of our city, and to foster in Wellington citizens some such regard for the early days as is felt by the people of Christchurch and Dunedin. In a covering note, the association supplements its complaint that "Anniversary Day" is neglected ,by Wellington with a promise that on the twenty-second day of next January it will stir up our materialistic and forgetful citizens, into a remembrance that Wellington has a past worth cherishing, anjl a beginning that it will bo wholesome to remember. The first number of the journal contains some ■ interesting photographs and short articles of reminiscence; but future numbers, to bo valuable—and they can be made valuable . —must go in more largely • for historical documentation. Not the least attractive feature of the journal is its old-fashioned style. In the. closing sentence of its editorial—"Fain would we hope that this little venture meets with approval from the public, and with that hope we launch it on tho sea of publio opinion"—there is a heartsome flavour of the pleasant style that ruled in the days when (as we are reminded on page 13) the children played "in the manuka scrub where now runs Lambton Quay."