AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 13, 4 January 1845, Page 3

AUCKLAND.

The Property Tax.— Up to Wednesday last we have pretty satisfactory reasoa to know, that only two hundred pounds have been paid in, and this sum includes the payment of several, who have liberally advanced for the twelvemonth, instead of making satisfaction to the demand of the law by quarterly disbursements only 1 ." We are sorry to record

this, for, the intention was good, although obviously ill-timed. We pity those parties who have paid for the whole twelvemonth, because we fear resort must be had over again to the -customs in less time than that : in accordance with the present shuttlecock system, — and if it should be so, it will assuredly not bring any refunding system in its train. As things stand at present, the Governor has " let go of both ropes," — " which nobody can deny." Brown and Martin have wheedled him out of his vaunted seamanship ! but Captain Fitzroy is a man of energy, and not likely to despond, — Action is his motto, and we recommend all those who have goods in store not to boast too loudly of their extent and value, — and not to refuse remunerating prices, — this is not the time for holding long, ior assuredly Mr. Hogg will be sent round, with an ink-bottle at his button-hole to take an inventory and leave a charge note of customs, before many quarters of the present experiment have been tried. Captain Fitzroy's first dispatches, it seems, arrived home in good time (22nd April,) and we look forward most anxiously for a reply to his subsequent ones. It is a pity that we are not somewhat nearer to our real, our absolute and positive authorities, but we cannot help it — in modern practice it has been established that the minimum distance at which the focus may be adjusted in order to " take a sight " of any colony, mnst be at least ten thousand miles, and that the sight aforesaid will be improved in correctness by a retrograde movement, amounting to the perfect adjustment, when the spectator approaches the confines of the Moon ! — Times.