WELLINGTON.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 485, 27 June 1857, Page 5

WELLINGTON.

We have Wellington papers to the 17th instant. ' The Council was prorogued on the 3rd instant, after coming to some pithily worded resolutions against the General Government. A petition from the settlers in the Ahuriri district is published in the newspapers, having arrived too late to be presented to the Council. It prays that that district shall be especially excepted from liability for the payment of the principal or interest on any loans hereafter to be obtained by the Provincial Government for any purpose from which the inhabitants of the districts do not derive a direct benefit, or a fair proportion of which is not spent in the district for their advantage. A public meeting was held on the 15th inst., for the purpose of forming an association to provide for the educational wants of the town. An amendment on the first resolution overthrew the scheme chiefly on the grounds that education was already sufficiently encouraged on the voluntary system, and that a system of ' sound secular education, with the principles of piety/ supported by taxation, direct or indirect, would be a deterioration rather than an improvement. An • overwhelming majority' of the meeting voted for the amendment; only six or seven hands being held up for the original proposition. Friendly Society.—" Help yourselves and your friends will help you," is an old English adage, and one very characteristic of Englishmen in whatever part of the world they may be found. It gives us pleasure to record as an illustration, that on Monday evening last, a very interesting meeting was held at Gawith's Hotel, for the purpose of forming a Friendly Society for the benefit of the workmen in this pity and its neighbourhood. About sixty persons were present (most of them belong to the newly arrived) who agreed to establish a society for providing a sick and funeral fund on the principle of similar societies in England. The meeting was presided over by Mr. Parker, the foremen of the men employed in excavating the site of the Government Buildings^ and who arrived here in the Indian Queen. The rules of the English Societies were modified to the circumstances of the colony, and are to be submitted_ to a public meeting, at which we hope the attendance will be as encouraging as the object deserves. Simultaneously with this movement, we notice the Mechanic's Institute has been opened on Saturday evenings free of charge. We are pleased to announce that last Saturday some forty or fifty persons availed themselves of the opportunity of perusing the English and Colonial papers in its warm, well-lit, and comfortable reading room. The two features above recorded are both of them " steps in the right direction."—lndependent, June 10.