UTOPIAN LETTERS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 45, 3 October 1863, Page 5

UTOPIAN LETTERS.

To the Editor of the Lake Wakatip Mail. Dear Sir,—l am firmly convinced that everything is going wrong, and unless some vigorous steps are taken immediately, there will be somebody to pay and no pitch hot. I hasten to lay, therefore, the whole affair before you, and entreat you to save us from our enemies. I feel assured of your sympathy, but do'nt think that I seek your advice, for short of physic and kicks I think advice is the most disagreeable thing in the world to take. But this is a digression. I have been for the past eight months living —I would have said vegetating, but that there is no green food here except potatoes— at Reginaville, the chief township of Lake Waitabit, so called, as you know, from the time we have been waiting for necessary public works. The people are infatuated enough to believe that gold exists here, but I have not heard of anyone getting . fat on it, though they are certainly indefatigable, and many intractable natives are spread over a considerable tract of country endeavoring to extract the precious metal. The Government ot course are better informed on the subject, yet in their paternal kindness they have humored the inhabitants in their harmless hallucination, after a vain attempt to convince them of their fallacy, and at a great outlay have established a full staff of officials on the field, consisting of half a magistrate, two policemen, and a surveyor-of-all-work, who does nothing but smoke and walk about all day for his amusement. A large trade is carried on with the capital of Utopia—Mudeden —which the inhabitants of the neighbouring province of Southbog are endeavoring to attract to themselves, enunciating the amusing doctrine that if they can supply us cheaper and better than Mudeden, they have a nght to do so. Knowing that the Ltopian Government has a constitutional objection to roads and can't lay down rails, the Southboggians rail at them, accusing them of stinginess, and swear they'll do it themselves, having already had the baseness to establish lines of steamers to their port —Inveridentity—and formed an escort, especially to possess the trade themselves. Thank heaven, we have one hope yet: they will have to cross the boundary of the Utopian territory for the space of nearly six hundred yards, and the Government will no doubt see the necessity of protecting us against the evils of cheap and rapid transit. I believe they have decided on building a wall to keep the Southboggians out; which proves at least that if they have an eye to the wall, they are neither wall-eyed or blind to their own interests.

Of coarse it could not be expected these machinations would escape the vigilant eye of the Utopian Government, which consists at present of three highly respectable and irresponsible persons—Mr. Winsome Spike, Mr. Singein Flanagan, and his " old woman," Mrs. Gamp. They saw the danger and provided against it, breaking for the first time known, their usual rule of providing for nobody but themselves —even this merely proving to be dumber One. If the trade were diverted to Invendentity it would be anything but diverting * to the Mudedenites, though the former might chuckle, and the Utopia Government have therefore hit upon a plan to prevent the aggrandisement of the Southboggians by removing all chance of communication between Mudeden and Reginaville. The coach run by Coke, Hoyle and Co. having to pass through a portion of the province of Southbog, it was naturally regarded as an insult to the resources of Utopia, and the proprietors were ordered to keep within the boundary, or the Government would take away the mail subsidy, and send the letters via Dunceton (so called, I believe, from the numbers who 11 rushed" there about a twelvemonth a#o). As this wou'd fix the coach tighter than the fourteen feet of bog that usually covers the road between Lake YYaitabit and Mudeden, the proprietors were rather staggered at this Dunceton news, and humbly remarked that no amount of horseflesh could get up a mountain. The Government were convinced that the proprietors were jibbing, and not their horses, this latter being most unusual, and so jockt yed them, and threw them on their own resources for being so saucy.

This is the second time that the country has been saved from the contaminating touch of Southbog, though some wretched alarmists say it is giving them an opportunity of making their port more resorted to than ever, by driving all the passenger traffic that way. The first occasion was when the Inveridentities sent up a mail three times a week, while the Mudedenites were quite content with twice. The majority of the letters, of course, are for Reginaville, but by a skilful manoeuvre, they are kept at St Jack's, till the Mudeden mail arrives, when they cross the Lake together. It serves them right for their presumption, and we cannot be too grateful to those noble men who thus risk all—even reputation—for their country's good. But I shall fatigue you. I will reserve any further communication till another time. Yours, &c, Quixote Quid.