ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 55, 7 February 1843, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

(To the Editor of the New Zealand Colonist.) The rose by any other name might smell as sweet.” Kahouri! Sir,' —Ever since the formation of British Colonies, the vanity of individuals has been most conspicuously marked in the changing of Native names of places, however beautiful, for their own, though ever so unharmonious and grating. ' New South Wales has been particularly abused iin this manner, by the fondness of littleminded men td perpetuate their names by this very unmeHtorious and absurd piece of foolery. It only gains ■ifrom-: mankind • the ( sneer, of contempt, unless it be in ;honor df:some.eminent personage, whp has rendered bis country famous among the nations of the earth by his distinguished Services. Then it becomes an act of gratitude, and a high mark of justly-gained renown, which every man feels a : pleasure in bestowing. But when we hear of the names of places being attemptd to be changed to please some stripling , merely because there is the vain hope of some mercenery end td be gained by it, every one who has the least spark of independence remaining, ought, most decidedly, to set his face against such nonsense, and oppose it with all his might. . Happily our Colony is in its infancy, and now is the time to put a stop to it. Few places are as yet changed from the original, and those are for the worse. Who can for a moment suppose that the name Hutt is preferable to the native name Erratounga? Or that the Waivetu would have been improved had it been changed to -thatof the Doctor ?

It is rumored that the tine-sounding name Wanganui is about to be tried on to be altered (who could conceive it ?) to that of Petrel!! —Splendid !—And judging froth this, it is not unsupposable but that the township of Manawatu (if ever there should be such a place) may be called by the delightful name of Snooks! should any gentleman in England of such a name promise to do great things on coming out here. May the departed spirits of the natives of Wanganui, for a hundred years hack, rise up and condemn it!—May every landholder eschew it! Who have been more played upon (and abused to boot, with the unjust epithet of grumblers■) than the purchasers of land at Wanganui? And are. they to be pestered in this way, by having such an absurd name foisted upon the place of their earthly sojourn ? Hoping that the Goddess of Vanity may never have an altar in New Zealand, I remain, Sir, Your's, &c., A COLONIST. ( February 6', 1843. [We have taken the liberty of omitting some of our Correspondent’s remarks, considering them of too personal a nature; but we perfectly agree with him on the impropriety of altering many of the native names of places for others of far less significance and harmony.] —Ed. N. Z. C.