EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26622, 19 November 1947, Page 4

EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

FROM THE FILES OF THE ©tago Sail'? Himes DUNEDIN, NOVEMBER 19, 1862 “ On Friday last the Daily Times attained the first anniversary of its existence, and we feel that, without rendering ourselves liable to the charge of undue egotism, we may indulge in a few remarks on the occasion. . . . We may refer with pride to the general success which has attended its career. . .. Its circulation averaged during the first five months 1500, and since then over 2000.*. . J’ ' “ Mr H. Farley is pushing vigorously the works for the transformation of 20 acres of land at Anderson's Bay into a Cremorne or Vauxhall gardens. A number of men are employed in draining and laying out the ground, and others have commenced the erection of a jetty for the convenience of visitors, whether arriving by boats or by the steamer which will ply regularly from the new jetty to the gardens.” “ The hot, sultry weather of the past few days suggests the idea whether it may not be a profitable thing to secure next winter a quantity of ice. During the past winter the Waihola Lake could have supplied sufficient ice to have cooled the parched throats and heated frames of the Dunedin folks all the summer.”

“Whoever compiled the prison regulation rules,” says the Daily Times, •' seems to have been affected with a superabundance of the milk of human kindness. To prisoners of the first class—i.e., those who have behaved themselves well for six months —is awarded a scale of rations that many of the hard-worked labourers on Bell Hill would envy.” The paper says that these particular prisoners receive lib of fresh meat, 21b of potatoes, lib of bread, loz of soap. £oz of tea, joj of salt, 2oz of sugar, 6oz of oatmeal, 4oz of cocoa, and also two sticks of tobacco weekly. The paper adds thal a premium to insubordination was held out by the light manner in which offences were visited. . For mutiny, for assaulting an officer with intent to do grievous bodily harm, or for setting afire to buildings, a prisoner could cnly be condemned to solitary confinement for 14 days at a time, and an interval of 42 days had to elapse before the punishment could be repeated. During these 42 days he could commit the offences with impunity. .