The Lake Wakatip Mail. Queenstown, Saturday, July 18, 1863.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 23, 18 July 1863, Page 4

The Lake Wakatip Mail. Queenstown, Saturday, July 18, 1863.

In a recent issue, when commenting upon the case of Job Johnson, we referred to the probable removal of Mr. Wood, the Warden and

Resident Magistrate for this district. Our anticipations have been realized, and Mr. Wood has been made the Jonah of the sinking ship, and has been thrown overboard. The Nokomai has received him, and he will recollect for the future that to do the duties alone in a district now requiring the services of three wardens when the excitement of the Lake rush is over, is a breach of discipline, he will hesitate in carrying out for the future. He will also remember that hard working public servants are not always appreciated, and that a discerning public is not always ready to protect and sympathise with a deserving official. Our remarks upon Job Johnson's trial and Mr. Wood's removal were made after mature consideration of a very strange, though nevertheless true statement of circumstances, following close upon one another, bearing upon the arguments contained in that article. They are these:—Mr. Wood received a subpoena from the Supreme Court to attend and give evidence for the defence.

An official of Queenstown intimated that there was no necessity of Mr. Wood's attending. Another Government official Tas met at the Mataura River, who asserted that Mr. Wood should first have asked leave before proceeding to town. When Mr. Wood arrived in Dunedin, an official, high in office, asked why had he left his district, and when told that as a magistrate he could have no excuse of ignorance in disobeying the order, and that a digger's life depended upon his evidence, he was told that he had acted rightly. The foreman of the jury who acquitted Johnson, and whose verdict sends him out upon the world an innocent man, void of the heinous offence charged against him, has asserted that upon Mr. Wood's evidence alone was Job Johnson proved an injured—an innocent man. It was during his absence on this trial that a brother official of equal rank throws the whole blame of the removal of the camp upon the shoulders of Mr. Wood. Like our editor, we have unknown correspondents who furnish us with matter from various parts of the world; we publish the subject of a meeting we have just received from our special from Dunedin; it bears upon the same subject of Mr. Wood's removal, and in it are contained some startling statements that call for explanation. It occurred not many miles from Princes-street, Dunedin, and is as follows: — " How can we take the sting out of that wasp, the Wakatip Mail, and make it as harmless and insipid as the * * * ?" was a question lately propounded by a distinguished agitator (now high in office), to another less-distinguished schemer (still higher in office), at a secret conference unconsciously held in the presence of our invisible correspondent, who had induced a lineal descendant of Asmodeus to spirit him into the room. " Just let rae go up to the Lake before there is a responsible ministry to interfere, and give me a carte blanche to make a clean sweep, and Til clip his wings fast enough" was the reply; and thereupon leave was given, the interview concluded, and our invisible correspondent and diable boiteux found themselves left alone in the apartment, and the early morning found a certain official on his way to Queenstown, to " redress the diggers' grievances," and thinking how he would protest that he wa3 as innocent as the child unborn of having shifted the Camp to Frankton (which was all the fault of "t'other one"), and how he (said official) was always and sleeplessly thinking of all the good he would do for said diggers and residents; and how he (said official) would declare solemnly that he would never cease his parental solicitude for said diggers and residents; and how he would, for their benefit, shift back the said Camp from Frankton; and how, finally, he would invent still more wonderful and intricate problems for their mental enjoyment, than are contained even in that magnificent twelvepenny production of genius known as the " Rules and Regulations of the Otago Goldfields." And as our correspondent and his Asmodeus invisibly accompanied said official, he noticed (but he won't be quite sure on this point) that the tongue of the said official had a strange tendency to inhabit one of his cheeks ; and, farther, he noticed (but upon this point he is quite sure) that the official in question, on divers occasions put his mouth to the sleeve of his great coat, and then laughed and chuckled to himself for some cause unknown to said correspondent. But our " special correspondent" did not go far, for he confessed to us in his communication that he did not much like the company, and so returned to Dunedin. And the said official arrived at the Lake in due time, and then blew his trumpet, and pulled his long bow, and astonished the residents with his archery and his music; and told them how he was a$ innocent as the child unborn of the shifting of the Camp to Frankton, and did not even know of it, and that it was the fault of the Warden

and of the late Ministry —and that he would never cease, and so forth—and that he would invent so forth—and that he would turn the Kawarau, and so forth—together with all the rest of the gammon and spinach in such cases made and provided. But said official omitted to say that he had for months past, through some miraculous power of always doing the right thing, invariably directed his whole official correspondence to this unknown Frankton camp; and omitted to say that a certain Warden, whom he then basely attacked in his absence, had incurred the high displeasure of his superiors, because he foolishly obeyed the mandates of the Supreme Court to give evidence to save the life and character of a low digger; and omitted to say that he had come up expressly to make that base and cowardly attack, partly because the Warden in question had obeyed the subpoena without leave, and partly because he had not shown himself sufficiently hostile to this journal, and had not attempted to clip its wings, as in duty bound he ought to have done; and omitted to say that Mr. Jabvis had been

sent up with positive instructions to build the camp buildings at Frankton; and omitted to say who proclaimed Frankton the polling place instead of Queenstown; and omitted to say that Queerstown was informed by an official letter, as also the Arrow, that Frankton shall be the Government township; and omitted to explain why the Arrow had its wooden court buildings and Queenstown none. If this gentleman will not let sleeping dogs lie he may find that he may get bitten. If he will declare war, then possibly he may find that the artillery of the enemy is not so easily silenced as he imagined. And now for his edification we demand from the Government an answer to the following questions:— Ist. —Is an inferior official allowed to make an attack upon another inferior official, and if he is, then is not that other inferior official, by the rules of the service, to be allowed to make a liar of his brother officer, through some other equally public medium, if he can do so ?

2nd. —Is a Warden to be punished by banishment to a distant and inconvenient district away from the place where he had settled his family at a heavy expense, because he obeyed a Supreme Court subpoena when it would have been more convenient for police reputation that he should disobey it ? 3rd. —Is it to be understood that the Commissioner of Goldfields is to dismiss, remove, or appoint a Warden or resident Magistrate without the sanction or control of any responsible minister, and by the authority of the Superintendent alone ? When these questions are answered satisfactorily we will repent in sackcloth and ashes; we will vote for Mr. Pyke to be future Superintendent of the Province (although he once tore up and stamped upon Her Majesty's representative's address, in his over-zeal of loyalty); we will move heaven and earth to get Mr. St. John Branigan appointed Chief Justice of New Zealand, and we will clip our own wings and thereafter call ourselves the Wakatip * * *.