Colonial.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IX, Issue 590, 30 June 1858, Page 3

Colonial.

r! ; WELLINGTON. kl By the arrival of the Mary Thomsbtiwe have t received "Wellington1 papers -up to the 19th ":i "Thb question between the two acting Super- ' ■ inteMentsksio^ho was the legarone. Was fully ft- argue4beforeJudgearesson oivthe 10th inst., r: by Mr. Borlase on behalfof Mr. Ludiam and .', Mr. Branoori for Dr. Featherston. ' His honor delivered an elaborate decision on the following day, which we give elsewhere. „ I The " Spectator" of the. I.6th inst. gives the following particulars of the new Provincial ap- , pointmiehts:—- . • Late on Saturday, a Gazette was issued by the Speaker, acting as Superintendent, containing the appointments of the following gentlemen possessing the confidence of the representatives of the people, viv.,—Mr. E/J. Wakefield to - be Provincial'Secretary'and Treasurer, under the Act *p assed by the Provincial Council du- |> ring thepresent Session, and assented to by Dr. i Featherston; Mr; C.B.'Borlasej Provincial So--7* licitor; and "Mr.'GvHunter to a seat in-the-Ex-" '« ecutive Council;. These three ■ gentlemen now } form the Executive ■ Government of the Pro- ■* vince, arid have actively entered upon • the discharge of their important duties. * This morn--1 ing Mr. Wakefield has received from Mr. Fitz- ,.' herbeirt the £5,000 illegally paid to him by Mr. II Fox, as Acting' Treasurer, and the other sums1 " since paid to his account as receiver of Land: '' Revenue, amounting in all to £6,800, which was paid over by the Oriental Bank to the account of the Provincial Government at the Union Bank of Australia. This sum, and all other monies to the account of the Provincial Government, will be kept by the Executive untouched, until after the election of a Superintendent; and whatever' sums are required to pay the' road* parties arid defray the current expenses of the , Government, will be raised by them on their own credit and responsibility. It is not their intention to make any changes among the sub- | ordinate officers of the Government, but they wiir continue the administration of affairs on their present basis, until after the election.' We understand thatistrict injunctions will be given to Mr. Holds worth, the paymaster of road ■ parties, not to exact, as heretofore, from the newly arrived immigrants in the employ of Government, the payment of Jei per month in liquida--i tion of their promissory! notes, but to inform them that good faith will be kept with them, and the stipulations as to the repayment of their passage money made with them in England, will be honorably carried out. During Mr. Wakefield's short visit to Wangariui, Mr. Yule has , , teen appointed' Acting1 Treasurer, to carry on the duties of the office; For a full account of the iioiaination for the Supeririteride'ncy and Other matters of Welling- i touian interest, we refer1 our readers to theyft^- j lowing humorous5 and graphic details from.our. j Special Correspondent :— NOTES OF & iTOtrftNEY TOWARDS THE i I CENTRE OF NEW ZEALAND. It having been determined for certain reasons \ of policy, superior to geography and other mat-' ters of fact, that the centre of the Islands of ; New Zealand is not in or near that spot to which a geometer on consideration of the map would assign it, you will no doubt be gratified with the notes of an expedition which has been

'-.. lately undertaken from the shores of Canterbury f to arrive, if possible, at the point 'where that j centre is by law fixed. You must not be astonj ished' if the course taken in the' projected dis-

covery be a somewhat crooked or devious, one, i i for fhe point is as you are aware arbitrarily [ \ fixed, and the means of arriving at it are subI,') ject to no known law. ] \ lam travelling in very good company—two \ \ representatives of Canterbury in the General \ Assembly being bound on the same errand as "myself, and following the same course. In fact the doggrel hexameters which we used to repeat ,as school-boys are pretty nearly applicable in this case, beginning— ' Patres Conscripti took a boat, and went to Phillippi.'— the absurdity of the act when'attaching to Roman Senators being reduced to plain niatter-of-fact in New Zealand, if for Patres Conscripti we read Members of Assembly, and for Phillippi ; our present destination. I hope that before we ;go further the remaining lines may not be also | applicable— " Stprmus surgebat, et boatum oversetebat; Omnes drowndebant gui swim-away non potnibant." . ; —For in the 'mountainous' billows, leagues of j which the eye crosses'to find the nearest land, 'the stoutest swimmer^ whether Bomari or Colonial, would not be able to find the slightest: benefit in the saving clause.' , The voyage has1 begun:l—We are in a small fore-and-aft schooner, which possesses the advantage of carrying the Government despatches, and therefore is obliged to call at each port of the Islands by which she passes: some one of these we suppose to be in the neighborhood of the legal centred arid therefore, if we wait long enough' and go far enough, as she patiently thrashed her way mile by mile, dodging in and out of the coast line, we may at length achieve the happy object" of our enterprise. \ I don't think1 a minute description of the voyage would be very pleasant. Need I tell you o^the damp crowding with dirty luggage among unknown fellow-passengers in dark bunks; of the schooner close-hauled against a foul wind, pitching and bumping into a short sea, while at the same time she rolls sideways down a heavy fcross swell; of the cold shivering on the skylight by night while a dreadful swimming about the eyes reminds that you left the close cabin jbelow in vain; then the intimation of a slight 1 change of wind by which the schooner gets a )" foot of the sheet and a point of the compass;" then the wind deludes you and drops, and the poat begins to roll wildly about in those huge smooth treacherous hillocks of water, jerking the idle, masts with every motion and flapping after them the whole arrangement of sails, ropes, spars, and blocks, creating a most bewildering noise; and then you go below and the reflection af all these horrors from the deck close above your head drives you to the verge of distrac-

tion a state of mind to which the long straining creak of certain timbers near you and the recurrent heavy jar of the boom on the traffrail with a pile-driving effect ultimately reduce you, unless inward convulsions have already rendered *you dead to all outward annoyances. Then in the morning, with a frail tenure of life, you totter about the heaving deck and show a feeble ;interest m the preparation of a harpoon for the porpoises which come with heavy gulps to the surface, as if they too were not quite well; and the Cape pigeon, which you have a weak infatuation to follow in his flight, sweeps in among his fellows to the utter confusion of your eye■'sight; then the question of the poor sick little (girlnear you," Oh! mammy, mammy, why doesn't the doctor send me medicine now and make me 'well?" lets you ponder feebly into a nearly idiotic state.

; But just now you overhear something about ; a breeze, and you see the heavy sails, as they ■fall forward in the roll of the boat, take a rounder shape ; and to your first enquiry you are told that a fair wind is coming up ; and the skipper 'comes round to you, recommending a bit of jcheese and a tot of brandy—which prescription you follow. Then,—whether the breeze or the brandy does it, —it happens that when the : schooner is going nicely through the water, in ithe right direction, just about tea-time your, I legs become wonderfully stronger, and your head steadier, and'you feel inwardly an altered man— ■so much so, that if a dry bit of chop is before ; you, you eat it, and don't feel, as usual, the worse ifor it; and the iittle vessel goes hurrying on i before the rising wind. You sleep soundly that i night, and wake next morning to find yourself i only a mile or two from land. ■

These little things, as I observed, don't bear description ; so I will confine myself to matters connected with the solid earth—the sights and sotmds on shore at this first stage of our journey to the centre. By-the-bye, it indicates the manner of our progress that the first port at which we have arrived is not that of a neighbouring province but of a remote one, and that we must go as much further as we have already gone to get to the head-quarters of the state which lies immediately contiguous to that from which we started.

Wellington harbour, as we enter it, is smothered in mist ; a strong south-east wind brings up from the ocean column after column of cloud charged with rain, and hides the well-known beauty of the place. But most people in Canterbury are acquainted with the place, either by description or actual observation* so that I need not attempt to describe what I did not see. Suffice it that the picture presented recalls vividly one's ]. earliest impressions of New Zealand. When we touched the shore these recollections were rapidly removed, and in their place came suggestions of American life, as reported by Martin Chuzziewlt. The first address of the boatman alongside was an opinion of his own on the case just decided between Dr. Featherstoh and the Speaker as to the deputySuperititeridency. We.had tumbled upon a most exciting time—in fact, a battle-day, in the " seat of War," as this city may be termed. The day before our arrival a decision had been pronounced by the Supreme Court that, the Superintendent having resigned, by the Deputy-Superintendent Act, the duties of the office devolved upon the Speaker of the Council, at present Mr. Ludlam, a leader of the Reform party. This is a great triumph for that party. Moreover, the acting Treasurer of the Featherston Government had taken the'liberty to transfer £5000, a portion of the funds belonging to the Province, from the bank whose solicitor is a reformer, to the other, where the opposite influence is exerted. This, and all other monies of the State, have been handed over to the Treasurer of the new Government, amid the exultations of its partizans.

But the great event of all, for which we had arrived just in time, was the nomination of candidates for the Superintendency, now vacant by Dr. Featherston's resignation. The ceremony took place the day after our arrival, and proved a wonderful spectacle. The weather had become worse and worse, the south-east wind had risen to a furious gale, and the bitter cold rain swept almost horizontally over land and sea. Against the bare wall of the police office, in the most exposed spot which could be discovered in the town, a little platform was raised for a hustings. Before this, with the privilege of turning their backs to the wind, about two hundred people, covered in every conceivable species of foulweather wrapping, were gathered together about noon. On the little stage, just so high as to be unsheltered by the crowd, under the; eave-drbp from the roof, and forced, for fear of offending, to turn their faces to the blast, were seven indi-viduals^-two candidates, a proposer and seconder of each, and the returning officer. Besides the seven' waterproof envelopes of this, devoted band, all I could see was—two very jolly red faces under hats, one ditto under a wide-awake, one dismal face behind a good deal of hair, one thin and one commonplace ditto. The seventh must have been very thin too, for not only the face, but nearly the whole person was concealed behind a closed umbrella held vertically to the storm. You niay imagine that to people of such violent prejudices as now distinguish the citizens of Wellington, the greatest x^ortion of a hustings speech would be drowned either in the cheers of one party or the hoots of the other ; but when you arid a south-east blast driving torrents of rain into the orator and carrying his words at the rate of sixty miles an hour to leeward, over a high roof, you will hot be surprised when I tell you that of the addresses on this momentous occasion scarcely fifty words were heard in the whole-—certainly not a whole consecutive sentence anywhere. Hence the speeches had a remarkable sameness. A verbatim report of one of them will serve as a specimen of all. Perhaps it is the iollyface under the wide-awake who comes forward to the rail of the little platform. The wide-awake is slouched, and the head bent forward to stop as much rain as possible, while the cloak is held forcibly tegether with both hands. His oration sounds somewhat in this way .—"Gentlemen, I"—(cheers and groans)— ♦I propose a fit and proper person,"—(gust of wind)—"known to all of you that the merits" —(stronger blast)—"constant exertions have been directed "—(loud cheers)—" prosperity of the •olony is due"—(indiscriminate shouts) —

'he will be returned, lam sure."—(We will—we will ! groans,"hurrahing, and vehement groans) amid which the remainder of tiie oration was swept over the police office, and a demonstration with the speaker's hand towards an individual at one end of the platform terminated the address, drawing down more applause and more indignation. No one in the crowd, however interested, could have gathered much more than this from the three gentlemen who spoke at length, The others were very short. For instance, the thin gentleman who hid himself to leeward of the faded umbrella, when it came to his turn, stepped to the rail. This was the signal for an outburst of the crowd. The orator's mouth opened, and his open hand wandered forward. Then nods of the head, symptoms of articulation about the mouth, and then thumps of the right fist into the i air follow. The mouth opens and shuts rapidly, the umbrella is transferred to the right hand, and the left waves and thumps vigorously. The head nods insanely, the jaws work incessantly, and the umbrella is got into play : head shakes, jaw jerks, umbrella waves ; —shake, jerk, jerk ; shake, wave ; shake, slash ; shake, jerk ; shake, poke, slash ; jerk, jerk, jerk ; shake, shake, shake, poke, poke, poke ; —and the speaker winds up with maniacal thrusts with the umbrella point perpendicularly down beneath the stage, as if he imagined that his particular enemy was about to be dislodged from beaeath the boards. Words can convey but a very faint idea of the whole scene, and had I not felt great pity for those who exposed themselves to the elements, with a little regret for the coldness and wet from which my own proper person was suffering, I could have been heartily amused. The show of hands was decared to be in favor of Dr. Featherston. I don't think either this decision or the opposite could be cavilled at by any one not in so advantageous a position for observation as the returning officer for the number of hands held up, was nearly as could be seen by one on a level with the crowd, equal on both sides. So also when the crowd divided—to the right for Featherston and to the left for St. Hill, the number of both bodies was within very little alike. One of the newspapers here reports that 178 appeared for the latter and 179 for the former; the other intimates that there were 400 or 500 people present. The Avhole crowd did not in fact number more than 200; few or more were children, but several on both sides held up both hands. As to the conduct of the respective parties, I was surprised, having heard much of the rowdyism of the Radicals, to find that while Dr. Featherston's friends were heard in tolerable \ quiet, the opposite party were hooted, shouted lat and clamoured down; and this was not of course an expression of the general opinion of ; the crowd for there were as many on one side as the other. Though not really of importance, the show of hands is held to be a guide for the waverers and consequently the most is being made of it by the victorious side The election takes place'next Monday week, the 28th inst. The town of Wellington lias been much improved during the last four or five years by the reclamation of the shallow shore along Lambton Quay, the construction of a number of commercial and private buildings, and above all the erection of the Government buildings, bank arid gaol. ;The form, of these buildings is, a .really; handsome and an extensive pile, showing weli from the sea. The general design is plain and simple; if there is a fault it is in the application of some trivial ornamentation to the*front. The back, or west elevation presenting the same features without the ornament is to my mind the handsomer of the two! Inside, the rooms of all sorts, from the legislative chamber to the closet, are all well constructed, tastily ornamented, and as well as I can judge without exactly knowing the uses of each chamber, cleverly arranged. The room set apart for the Chamber of Representatives, is undeniably handsome in all respects and is most creditable to Wellington. There is here a tolerably good full-length portrait of Dr. Featherston, the first and late Superintendent of the province. The bank (Union of Australia) I had not an opportunity of going through, but it is outwardly a very presentable structure and adds much to the view of Wellington from the water.

We sail immediately for Nelson, weather permitting; and my next communication will therefore probably be from that town.

Wellington, June 16, 1858,