THE EMPIRE CITY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 116, 15 May 1880, Page 2

THE EMPIRE CITY.

A former resident in Ballarat in a letter to a friend, gives the following extraordinary description of Wellington city:— -"Of all the backward, dirty holes I have been in, this beats them all. I know of no road in Victoria, excepting one close to Mount Warrenheip, in as bad a condition as the principal street in Wellington. The mud is two inches thick, and to have to cross the street on foot requires a large amount of moral courage to nerve one for the task. The public conveyances are the about the best things in the place, as as they are nearly all either carriages or broughams, but you never can get one if you want it before 10 a.m., or after 8 p.m., and even between those hours you may have to walk nearly a mile to one of the ' stands.' A tramway carriage runs every twenty minutes during the day up to 6 p.m., in which you can ride a distance of four miles for threepence. The best musical people in the city are two old Ballarat men, Messrs M. King and Caddy, the former a nephew of Mr T. King, and the other related to Mr Caclden, at one time market inspector in Ballarat The only vocalist Jworth mentioning is Mrs Greorge Ootterill (Miss Oarandini). There is very little to blow about the place, but id would not do to say so to the inhabitants, as they look upon Wellington as being vastly superior to any other place south of the line, although there is but one decent building in the whole city, and that iB Jacob Joseph's warehouse. There is not a square or garden in the whole place,

and no probability of there ever being one, since no room can be found for it, Wellington being built at the foot of a ridge of hills in the shape of a horseshoe. Occasionally they reclaim a few yards of the Bhore. from the sea. .It is, without doubt, 200 years behind the age, and has the most useless, good-for-no-thing . City Council I ever knew of. They do nothing, but want tojdo everything ; they must have sole control over everything ; they are the committee of the Hospital and Benevolent Asylum, &c, and Harbor Board Commissioners, and yet they are nothing in reality."