OPENING OF LYTTELTON GRAYING DOCK.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 979, 3 January 1883, Page 3

OPENING OF LYTTELTON GRAYING DOCK.

("per press association.] LYTTELTON, This .lay. The graving dock was opened to-day. The day was observed as a holiday. The weather was favorable, being calm hut cloudy. Large crowds witnessed the ceremony. SOME CURIOUS STATISTICS o ... In a recent issue of that worthy and strictly proper magazine, the Family Herald, we discover the following quite startling statistics in regard to our adopted country New Zealand.— New Zealand covers an area of 105,342 square miles. It has a population of nearly 3,000,000. In thirty years its trade rose from a value of £6,000,000 to £63,000,000. In 1871 it was £68,000,000; in 1880 it had risen to £94,000,000. The average of trade for every inhabitant is £l2 higher than in Great Britain, five times higher than in Europe as a whole, and five and a half times higher than in the United States. The gold extracted in thirty years amounted to £292,000,000. In 18/0 the wool crop was 193,000,000 lb ; in 1879 it was 892,000,000 lb. In 1880 the shipping entered and cleared was 8.500.000 tons. The colony has 1.250.000 horses, 8,250 cattle, and 75,000,000 sheep.” Now this is rather a staggerer, isn’t it ? Never mind the square miles, but think of a population of “ nearly three millions,” and a trade of “ sixty-three millions I” We have tried every arithmetical device that we could recollect to find out how such magnificent, such gorgeous blunders could have been made, or on what principle they proceed. But in vain. We fancied that a cypher or two might have been stuck on at the end of each set of figures, or that decimal points might have been ignored, but no clue could thus be detected. For to quote just a few of the correct numbers from official statistics, the European population of New Zealand at last census (1881) was 489,933, and on the 30th June last was estimated at 507,788, the Maoris adding only 44,000 to this total. The import and export trade for 1881 were only £7,457,045 and £6,060,366 respectively, so we find a difficulty in perceiving how the £94,000,000 for the previous year was made up. Our gold export up to this year has been £38,851,865, not £292,000,000, as the Family Herald's veracious statistician assorts. Instead of a million and a quarter of horses, we possess 160,302, little more than a tenth of that number. Of sheep we have 12,909,740, and not seventy-five millions. But strangely enough our valuable authority takes altogether a new departure when he comes to cattle. We have 695,783, but probably the idea of such a number of horses terrified him, and so he hastily reduced them to 8,250, o y little more than a hundredth part of the truth. So these eccentric statistics arc not even consistent in their wild exaggeration, but are wildly erratic in both directions. It would be really interesting to know how the figures we have quoted were made up. Certainly they might all have been set down at haphazard so far as any approximation to correctness goes, hut in that case they hardly could all have been so very far astray. They certainly will give the readers of the Family Herald, who form a very numerous circle, a surprising idea of New Zealand’s magnitude and progress. If all the Family Herald's statistics are equally trustworthy, some remarkable notions must have been acquired by'those who accept them as reliable gospel.— Post. m mi ir ™=nerß.^ Mr Dale announces a final clearing sale on Saturday next at 2 o’clock. The Georgia Minstrels will hold another performance at St. James’ Hall on Monpay, (he 15th inst. A concertina .match will come off, and Mr Hany St. Clair, the celebrated ventriloquist, is announced to give onb of his entertainments. The last London gag is the line, “ He lies like a gas meter,” from “ Rip Van Winkle,” the new opera-bouffe at the Alhambra. The phrase has obtained a popularity far exceeding that of “ Woa Emma.”