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Otago Daily Times, Issue 108, 21 March 1862, Page 6

Horrible if True.—The" lynching of a Chinaman at Prairie City, in Sacramento County, a fewdays since, has already been noticed. The Folsom ■ Telegraph says : —The body, all over it, bore marks o brutal'violence, and thr rope by which it was hanged had been dripping blood. The probable facts are these : —A Chinaman was detected stealing gold from the claim of four white men. The culprit was taken by about twenty miners, and whipped, beat, kicked; and' dragged around the village of Prairie City, and thrown and left in a creek, from which he was taken by four men and hanged to a tree. When civilization does become merciless and outrageous, its victims had better be in Barbary." Bahk of New Zealand.—The business done by the Bank of New Zealand since its establishment, hasexceeded the most sanguine expectations of its projectors. Shares are in demand, and sell at a premium in Auckland. In Nelson, where the Bank ' was looked on coldly at first, the reaction has been salutary, and since the opening of the branch office there, all the sharer allocated for that city have been taken up. The shares set apart for Otago, were - subscribed for long sinne, and numerous applications have been, made by residents in Otago, to the other iprovinces, to procure unsubscribed shares. In Christchurch a branch has been opened under favorable auspices, the bank enjoying the patronage of Ihe provincial government at Cantertmry. In a previous article we referred to the branch bank offices then established. We now add to the list the following:—Nelson, Picton, Blenheim, Christchurch, and Napier; and branches are about to be established in . Lyttelton and tJIe Southland province. Other new agencies are in contemplation, the establishment of which we "will notify in due time. On the Otago diggings the Bank of New Zealand has been more successful than any of its banking competitors. Considerably more gold has been purchased by the agents of our Colonial bank than-by. the agents of the other tanks. There are. agents of the Bank of New Zea? land at Waitabuna, Wetherston's, Tuapeka, and Waipora diggings, one of whom < secured, the 13 oz. nugget, which may find its way to the Great Exhibition this year in London, The official retrirn-of the circulation will not be published until the end of next month, and inasmuch as many of the agencies are newly, established, the return will not give an exact account of the amount of the business transacted, but only an approximation. But the result, we anticipate, will be favorable indeed/and such as will stamp this great colonial undertaking as possessing the confidence of the Eettlers of New Zealand. The following gentlemen are appointed managers of branches :— Dunedin, Mr George M'Lean, late of the Oriental Sank: service, a gentleman of large experience in banking in Victoria, and in the details of gold purchasing. Mr Larkworthy, who was so successful in •organising the Dunedin branch, is to go to take the management of the London office. The management •at Christchurch has been conferred on Mr Ferguson, late of the Union Bank service; Mr Watkins, late of the Bank of New South Wales, is manager at Nelson ;"Mr Brandon, also late of the Bank of New JSouth; Wales, is agent at Napier; and Mr King, an old Taranaki settler, is manager at New Plymouth.'— ■•■Southern Cross," March 7.

DUi!IEDI.X AND PORT CHALMERS BOAD PUBLIC 3IEKTIXG AT TOItT CIULMERS. 11l compliance wilh a requisition signed by several of the influential inhabitants of Port Chalmers and its neighborhood, and addressed to 35. M'lifgrave, I'>q., K.M., a meeting was convened at the school-house there on Wednesday evening, to consider the question of widening the road between Port Chalmers and Dunedin. ' The Chairman (Mr, Taylor) having read th G advertisement by which the meeting was called, said that,as to the importance ofthe meeting there could not bo a question. It was too well known to all present, to all residents in the township of Port Chalmers, and to the settlers in the contiguous district, that in the matter of road facilities they had been sadly- neglected by the Government. Some time ago, when he was appointed to be one of the representatives to the Kond. Board, he had succeeded in obtaining a sum of money to make a road between Port Chalmers and Dunediu, and-a sum ot LBOO was spent upon the formation of that road,- which, after its completion, was found to be totally useless. In his place in the Provincial Council he had also, from time to time, urged on the Government the necessity of'forming a thoroughly good road, and he succeeded in getting 1,1,000 put among the votes, which sum was afterwards reduced to Lf 00, with the promise that the work should be effectually done. Subsequent to that he obtained an indefinite vote, according to which the road was to be thoroughly made, while the Superintendent was lo be indemnified for the amount which mk'ht be expended. The result of that vote he had not himself seen, but he judged, from the fact of such a meeting as this having been called, that it was not such as to give public satisfaction. He was sori-y that in his place in the Council ho had not been backed i;p as he could have wished by the members for the Western District. (Hoar, hear.) The whole weight and burden of tne mutter had fallen upon himself ; but he had congratnlat'ed himself that at length the means tor doingP-the Work had been supplied. Though the means were supplied, it appeared now, however that the Government had not taken advantage of these means to the full extent that might have been expected of them, and it was necessary tor them again to urge on the Government not only the propriety, but the absolute necessity ot their doing so. In point of importance, the road was second to none in the settlement. It was said by some that the highway for traffic between Dunedin and Port Chalmers was by water. It might be so in somb particulars, but a highway by land was to an equal extent necessary. Next to human beings, the Government put a high value on sheep as a means to the end of developing the colony ; and this year there were something like 100,000 sheep contracted for to be landed at lort Chalmers. The produce from these would be 1000 bales of wool, and were it but for that alone the Government was bound to provide a good road. For conveyance by horse or carnage, a good road was equally indispensable, and he hoped the meeting would, by the resolutions it would adopt, express its opinions in such a way as to induce the Government to undertake, without delay, the desiderated improvements. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Miller made some objections to the manner in which the meeting had been called. He could see no reason for the introduction in such a matter of such a functionary as a Hesident friagistrate, considering it a relic of a dependent spirit which he wished to see displaced by an independence on the part ofthe public, and a perfect right to hold a meeting when and where they liked. , Mr. M'Diarmid explained that the course taken was simply one of ordinary courtesy, and was one which enabled him to obtain, with his own, a number of influential signatures, which, but for the absence of parties, might have been still more numerous. The Chairman suggested that Mr. Miller might embody his objection (which he repeated several limes) in a motion to dissolve the present meeting, and call another ; and Mr. Miller did so, but 'the motion found no seconder, and consequently was not put. Mr.Duke, in proposing tire first resolution, said, though he hardly knew its terms, he was fully acquainted with the object of the meeting, and that was sufficient. The object was one the achievement of which deserved energetic and determined action, and, with such action taken on their part, he did not despair of impressing on the Government the urgent necessity for its execution. It could not but be obvious to any impartial man going over the present Dunedin and Port Chalmers road, that it was totally valueless for any practical purpose. He elid not know if it was the fact ; but he had been informed that drays would be prevented from going along the road. [A voice :Itis a fact] > Such a road, then, with its four feet of metal, was practically of no' use to" the settlers along its route, and, as one of the number, he called upon those resident in Port Chalmers, and all interested, to assist them in having this rectified. It was altogether absurd to have a~lot-of posts stuck along the rrad, so that only a horse could pass. AVhat they had always looked forward to was the construction of such a road as would enable them to get drays nearer their dwellings, and the increasing importance of improved communication between Port Chalmers and Dunedin, added to their claim, put them in a pood position to go before the Government *• ith that demand. He had read in the papers that by an extension of the jetty at. Port Chalmers, vessels of some size would be able to go alongside and discharge their cargoes, but what would be the use of this accommodation without a. good road communicating with-it, by. which Dunedin merchants and others might have conveyed to them the goods which they would.prefer having taken overland. The' Government had hitherto done very little for them? but they had now put in the, thin end ofthe wedge, and what they (the public) had to do was to follow it up with sound, heavy blows, so ns to widen the opening which had been made. (Hear, hear.) To Mr. Taylor they had cause to be particularly thankful for the interest he had always manifested in the matter, and as to those gentlemen who displayed such sublime indifference to their duties on each occasion it had been brought forward, perhaps the day would come when the settlers who had a voice would he able to talk to them. The resolution he had to propose was, " That this meeting is of opinion that the present road between Dunedin and Port Chalmers is quite unfit for the traffic, and therefore resolve to make application to the Government to have it sufficiently widened for carriages, and otherwise improved." , Mr. Morris seconded the motion with pleasure, the improvement proposed being, in his opinion, indispensably necessary ; and, on being put, the resolution was carried by a general show of hands. Mr. M'Diarmid proposed "that the meeting resolve to appoint a deputation to wait upon his Hor.Oi'the Superintendent, to represent the matter fairly before him, and to request that the road be immediately'widened1 as proposed." He was afraid that there was, on the part of the Superintendent, a wrong impression in reference to the construction of this road. Mr. Oliver had lately stated that they had got nil the road that had ever been asked for. Now, ns an old pettier, he knew that the grant for this road had been passed through the Council six or seven years ago. It was agreed that from Port Chalmers to Sawyers Bay and from Dunedin to the North East Valley, there should be aroad for drays, with a bridle track intervening ; but while at the Dunedin end a good road had been made, there was not at this end a road upon which two drays could pass, and in some places there was not even room for one dray. The bridle path was also a mere trumpery thing, the metalled portion being, instead of four feet, not more than three feet wide at the utmost ; and there was no difficulty in the way of making it, at a very slight increase of expense, a great deal wider. There was indeed something about the whole construction of that road, which might very naturally excite the jealousy of the people of Port Chalmers. The road out:of Dunedin was wide enough, but as soon as it diverges to ;Port. Chalmers, it narrows, as if in the one direction it led to a town, and in the other to nothing at all. Coming with wool or other produce from the north, it was, in the same way, necessary to go on to Dunedin, for Port Chalmers was practically inaccessible. As the natural outlet and metropolis of the northern district, he did not think this was what Port Chalmers deserved, .and he could see no good reason for Dunedin aggrandising every farthing that could be scraped together. The site of Dunedin was selected as affording a readier outlet for a certain district of country, but: it was not so in respect to the northern district, for the road from the North to Port Chalmers^was a gentle descent, while that to Dunedin was a series of ups and downs, and considerably more lengthy. It was in, this re

spect more oven than as a highway to Duneriin, that he looked upon a" Rood road out of Port Chalmers, to be u:o.-it important. The deputation whom he netni mled wuie. with himself, Messrs. Taylor, Galbraith, Hammond, Morris, "Wright, liitchic, Duke, and J. Thomson. '

The resolution having been seconded by Mr. Hammond, and carried unanimously, a vote of thanks was accorded to the Chairman, and the meeting separated.