The Humble Petition of the Dogs of Wellington.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 278, 29 March 1848, Page 2

The Humble Petition of the Dogs of Wellington.

Tohermost gracious Majesty, Queen of Great Britain, We (committee of Dogs in this city) have written This dutiful, humble, and loyal petition, For instant relief from our wretched condition. We complain of no pressure of impost or tax, No colonial misrule o'er the whites or the blacks, Of quarrelsome natives, or jobbing protectors, Unsatisfied land claims, New Zealand Directors. Though we feel we are truly political martyrs, We pray for no new constitutions or charters; We complain of no damage in pocket or health, We ask not for physick,* we seek not for wealth. We suffer no rabid canicular madness, But we smart, (and we speak less in anger than sadness) From practical wrongs in this part of the globe here> Far worse than misgovernment or hydrophobia. We beg for our lives, we implore your protection, From slaughter dealt out by despotic direction; We entreat your commands for a speedy cessation Of the present atrocious dog extermination. Oh! assent to our prayer, for alas! 'tis a fact We all fast disappear by the Dog Nuisance Act. Our numbers have suffer'd a sad diminution, Expos'd, as we all are, to one execution. Sire, consort, or aunt, son, uncle, or daughter, Involv'd in one wide indiscriminate slaughter, The prey they become of police, their abstractors, Who hang the poor innocents as malefactors; And worse, they are work'd off without judge or jury, Save the Dogberry myrmidons of Major D . Large and small, rough and smooth, young and old of each sex, All are doom'd to this fearful suspension of necks. But we cannot continue this horrid detail, Forour tongues becomefrothy,our cheeks becomepale. Yet of all, far the most unendurable curse is, Our deaths should enrich the police privy purses; For each capture resulting in premature death They obtain half a crown, while we lose our breath. We do not, like dogs metropolitan, die To flavour a sausage, or season a pie; Were it so, we perhaps, though consider'd Quixotic, Might consent to lose life in a cause patriotic. In this town, we indignantly state, we are slain For policemen's advantage, and their private gain, We are pining away, all our tempers are sour'd, Our wise dogs turn foolish, our brave ones turn coward. In the darkness of night and the silence of sleep The Police haunt our dreams, and we startup to weep. In the quiet of kennels, and private abodes, Ev'ry step that we hear, we exclaim, it is Str —'s; At the sight of his form we instinctively growl, Execrating his name in a general howl. Should your Majesty spurn us, our only salvation Will consist in a speedy canine emigration; And if ever the dogs from the colony go, Rest assur'd, to the dogs it will soon be in tow. Then grant us redress, Gracious Madam, and pity The evils sustain'd by your loyal committee. Save us (by annulling the Statute in question) From breaking of neck, and of brain the congestion. We shall then be in perfect enjoyment of peace, And co-operate zealously with the Police In patrols through the town, and keeping it quiet, In the capture of thieves, and the quelling of riot. Free from care, we the chain of existence shall drag, And their tails your Petitioners ever will wag. Signed on behalf of the Committee, Abgus. * "Throw physick to the dogs." —Macbeth.

The Barrier Reef of Australia. — The reef was about a quarter of a mile wide, and ran nearly due N. and S. for several miles. It appeared, indeed, to stretch to the horizon in both directions, the breaks in its continuity being so narrow as to be barely perceptible. A fresh breeze was blowing from the S.E., and rather a heavy sea running outside. The water was perfectly clear, and of great and almost unfathomable depth right up to the outer slope or submarine wall of the reef. The long ocean swell being suddenly impeded by this barrier, lifted itself in one great continuous ridge of deep blue water, which, curling over, fell on the edge of the reef in an unbroken cataract of dazzling white foam. Each line of breaker was often one or two miles in length, with not a perceptible gap in its continuity. After recovering from this leap, and spreading for some distance in a broad sheet of foam, the wave gradually swelled again into another furious breaker, of almost equal height and extent with the first, and then into a third which, although much less considerable, yet thundered against the bows of the wreck, with a strength that often made her very timbers

quiver. Even then the force of the swell was not wholly expended, two or three heavy lines of ripple continually traversing the reef and breaking here and there against the knobs and blocks of coral that rose higher than usual. There was .a simple grandeur and display of power and beauty in this scene, as viewed from the forecastle of the wreck, about thirty i'eet above the water, that rose even to sublimity. The unbroken roar of the surf, with its regular pulsation of thunder, as each succeeding swell first fell on the outer edge of the reef, was almost deafening, yet so deep toned as not to interfere with the slightest nearer and sharper sound, or oblige us to raise our voices in the least. Both the sound and the sight were such as to impress the mind of the spectator with the consciousness of standing in the presence of an overwhelming majesty and power, while his senses were delighted by the contrast of beautiful colours afforded by the deep blue of the ocean, the dazzling white of the surf, and the bright green of the shoal water on the reef. The reef when closely examined, appeared to consist of a sandy floor on which were thickly clustered clumps of coral, scattered closely but irregularly about it. The corals appeared principally wounded masses of astrae and mseandrina, covered with their green coloured animals in a state of expansion ; there were, however, mnny fingershaped madrepores of beautitul purple colours and leaf-like expansions of explanaria and other branching corals. These were now generally covered with from one to four feet of water, but some masses were level with its surface. The whole was chequered with spaces of white sand, had a bright grass-green hue when viewed from a distance, and when looking down on it from the poop of the wreck, might have been likened to a great submarine cabbage garden.

Gold in Australia. — Sir Roderick Murchison, in a letter to Sir Charles Lemon, the distinguished friend of the Cornish miners, sa y S :—" : — " Colonel Helmerson has recently suggested that a careful search for gold ore in the Australian detritus will, it is highly probahle, lead to its detection in abundance : since the Russians had long colonized the Ural mouniiains, and had for many years worked mines of magnetic iron and copper iv solid rocks, before the neglected shingle gravel and sand on the slopes of their hills and in their valley, were found to be auriferous. If then, in the course of your statistical inquiries, you may know of any good Cornish miner about to seek his fortune in Australia, be pleased to tell him to apply h>s knowledge of the mode of extracting tin oie from bis own Cornish gravel, to the drift and debris on the flanks of the great north and south chain of Australia, or any smaller parallel ridges of the vast country ; for great would be my pleasure to learn that through the application of Cornish skill, such regions should be converted into a British El dorado.'*