New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, January 31, 1852.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 678, 31 January 1852, Page 3

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, January 31, 1852.

' The Otago papers received by the Scotia tire filled with the sayings and doings of some half dozen persons calling themselves the Otago Settlers Association, who, after the fashion of their confreres in Wellington, meet to discuss the politics of the place, and, in order that their proceedings may be estimated at their proper value, publish their speeches 1 If this were all we might indulge in a quiet laugh at the expense of the little coterie into whose hands the management of the paper ias fallen, and who seem to have a strong desire to see their names in print on all occasions, and so dismiss the subject without fuither notice. But we regret to state that one of the numbers of the Witness affords

un mistakable evidence that the dissensions and differences which unfortunately are known to divide the community at Otago have reached a height which every well wisher to the settlement must regret. In the number to which we refer we find, first Mr. Justice Stephen preferring a charge in the Resident Magistrate’s Court against certain persons for conspiracy “ by handing about a document injurious to his reputation”—then one of the defendants in the previous case prefers a charge of assault against the Judge, which is dismissed by the Bench, and as a worthy climax to these proceedings, a Dr. Manning, is bound over to keep the peace for sending a challenge to the Judge ! The above is a brief outline of these proceedings, which arc not calculated to reflect much credit on the community in which they have occurred. i ’Tis true, ’tis pity; and pity ’tis, ’(is true.