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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1196, 13 December 1871, Page 2

A return presented to the Victorian Assembly shows the cost of drafting bills since the Constitution Act came into operation, in 1857, to be ,£9,798. The anti-Chinese petition, although it lay for four weeks in the Mount Ida district, did not receive a single signature.

The Evening Post, Bth December, says :—And all this time what lias become of the Moles worth memorial? Sent out by the friends and family of Sir William Moles worth more than twenty years ago as a present to the Province, not as a piece of egotism, but as a valuable gift to the place he helped to settle, vhere he worked, and for which his warmest sympathies were always excited, it has been allowed to rust and wear away in any corner, so that it was out of sight. We have not even allowed it a few feet of ground upon which to stand, or spent a few paltry pounds upon it to keep it from damage, and to carry out the giver'a wish. It was intended to stand as a beacon to mariners entering our harbor and had it been so placed in the days when it first came out, it would have drawn forth many a blessing upon the giver of it from weary settlers. But we in Wellington do not appreciate gii'ts. ft was hurried away into any dark corner of some unused store, and has at least once narrowly escaped falling into the bailiffs' hands for the rent even of such wretched accommodation as has been given it. After a number of years had passed, so that its very existence was forgotten, it was turned out on the Reclaimed Land, because the owner of the store where it had been thrown would not give it storage any longer without payment' The General Government here stepped in, and the Province was saved the disgrace of having the material for this memorial sold for rent. Again it has disappeared from public view, and what has become of it we cannot learn. It is to be hoped now that there will be shortly a little money in the Provincial chest the few pounds necessary for its erection will be forthcoming, and that it may be put up in some prominent place in the City or its neighborhood- We are hehind nearly every other town in the Colony in ornamental works. They have statues, columns, or obelisks, but we possess nothing of the kind, and yet probably more interesting events, fit subjects for such ornaments to our City, have occurred among us than in most other places. We hope that now a commencement will be made, a site, selected, the memorial erected, and a disgrace removed which its long neglect has entailed us.