From Gisborne to Melbourne.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1093, 29 June 1882, Page 2

From Gisborne to Melbourne.

[Written for the Povkbtx Bax Standard.) No. X DUNEDIN (Continued). I shall conclude my notice of Dunedin with a reference to the ladies, or, at least, their appearance in public, both in places of amusement, and onJ the thoroughfares. For this I give tqdfl palm to the southern ladies, in a moSP unqualified sense. Princes-street Vs literally alive with beauty and fashion, ' during all propriety hours, every fine day, and, mostly, even in moderately wet or boisterous weather, there are many evidences that aesthetic effeminacy is not amongst the characteristics of the ladies of Otago’s capital. In fact it is noticeable that the further one travels south, the more he sees of men and women with a flush of health on the cheek, and a like springiness of step, seldom seen among the denizens of more northern latitudes. The same atlnvercargill, for, although the month of February was barely ending, a keen sou’-wester mantled the cheek of beauty with a glow cheerful to behold, - coursing the healthful blood through® the “ natural gates and alleys of thal body,” and imparting a vigor to the possessor, quite at variance I with the more enervating habits and 1 feelings of the unacclimated visitor. I The Dunedin women are fine sped- I mens, too, of Nature’s architecture, j For physique, and well-built proper- ] tions there are no finer women in the I Colony, and as for Melbourne, Heaven I save the mark ! I have looked here in J vain for anything approaching thereto. 1 The pale-faced daughters of Auck- ■ land’s sunny clime, no doubt have I other pretentions, if not to positive ■ beauty, to womanly comliness and at- <1 tractions, that answer the purpose oflfl making them admired ; while for tljfl mere frivolities, and flay of finery, which wealth legets, no other town in New not even excepting Dunedin, can

with those of the extreme northern metropolis. Indeed, barring Christchurch, I saw lees of the social pageantry which is comprised in the outward show of lackeyed vehicular locomotion, in Dunedin than elsewhere. Of course Auckland is quoted as the very ho l bed of snobbishness, and offensive display ; while the women are accused of making up, in artificial adornment, for that which Nature has denied them. Nevertheless, Auckland can send forth some fine specimens of peripatetic female humanity, -nd “taking one consideration with another,” they wili hold their own against their sisters in the south. However, I did not intend these remqjko as sett:ng one against the other, except for the purpose of comparison, and to show what effect different degrees of latitude have on the human, and, in fact, all other organisations; and, insofar as women occupy so large and important a place iu our social system, to demonstrate (also by comparison) the widely different effect their presence or absence has in one place over another. Possibly there is no more pleasing picture to the eye of man than bevies of well-dressed, respectable women, parading the main thoroughfares of a properly-regulated city in afternoon of a fine day. Having travelled over nearly the whole of the Colony of New Zealand, 1 have been enabled to draw dispassionate conclusion, and form unbiassed opinions as to the preponderating or conflicting characteristics of each town, city, or centre of inhabitants, as each may be called ; and I am free to say Igive my choice equally between the two extremes —Auckland in the north, and Duuedin in the south. Of course I am well aware (and it is no new thing for me to express) that our likes and dislikes, as our opinions, are fashioned after the mould in which we have the most interest, let that interest be what it may —social, political, commercial, or imaginative. Now, writing personally, 1 have influences at work that bind me to either of these places with chords and eords, that can never be dissociated, or broken. 1 have engraven on the tablets of my heart, images and records of earlierand later days that cannot be broken, or effaced. It was in Dunedin that I spent my early days of boyhood • it was in Auckland, and its vicinity, that the more serious business of life—not unchequered with sunshineiand tears—occupied the attention of my fuller life. In both places sacred memoirs are buried—buried beneath the reach and ken of mortals—but they bind me, nevertheless, and their sweet associations, with indissoluble ties. As with me, so also, in all that is mortal, with ■others. True

* u There is no union here of hearts, " That find not here an end." But the mind clings to the past, as its solace for the present, and hope of the future. Looked at from an average point of view, and after a residence in the north for some years, I should say that the climate of Auckland is preferable. It is, however, very enervating, for the influences of climate are very great in mure ways, than that of mere constitutional endurance. But if one is looking, generally, for a discursive field of enter,pri«% whether iu town or country, and is able to combat with the hardier breezes of the south, 1 should say select Otago. To those engaged in city business there is no comparison, or if I must institute one, it would be immeasurably in favor of the Scotian capital. Both the men and women one meets with there are of an altogether different type, to, I may almost say, the rest of the Colony, and as for business capacity, and the understandings of commerce and politics, the Otagaus would run the Aucklanders to earth in a decade of weeks. In fact there are no business men in the north, and the cannie fellows down south ken it fine. Like the Wellingtonians, the Aucklanders could not keep their steamboat companies together, so they have to play second fiddle amongst the icebergers ; but the former fight desperately whenever the latter show signs of picking up the chestnuts that have been pulled from the fire for them. Auckland has, undeniably, a signal advantage, not only over Otago, but the whole of New Zealand, in her magnificent Waitemata and the sheets of land-locked water that stretch in Archiapelagian form, to the Thames on the one hand, and Coromandel on the other. Her position, too, in the geography of the Colony, will always enable her to hold her sway in the commercial business, for which her products, and interchanges so admirably fit her. She has a destiny, also, to fulfil, quite separate and distinct from that of Otago, which, did the spirit of liberalism actuate her rulers, should place her in a position of independent command over her own state ship. Auckland's interests are so distinct from those of Dunedin, as to dispel the slightest fear of jealousy or rivalry of an important nature; but, unfortunately for the small-souled inertness of the Auckland people, they act the dog in the manger, and so soon as the Otagans set to work for the development of any enterprise, such as a line of steamers with England, Wyn-dham-street is in arms, and exhibits a fear of losing the present ’Frisco mail expenditure. Even now Auckland is in dread of Otago competing with her Fiji trade, ridiculous as it may sound ; and, while she does not mind profiting by it, she looks with anything but favor on the thin end of the wedge inserted by the Union Company running a boat to. the eastern islands. Dunedin, on the other hand, and I may

say, Otago, takes a more comprehensive, if not cosmopolitan view ; and, although the Old Identity, headed by their representative, Mr Macandrew, break out, now and then, with the notion that Otago is New Zealand, they, nevertheless, can lay claim to more thorough go-a-headism than any place in the Colony. Otago possesses better institutions . larger industries ; a noble." sell for labor; a finer set of men, and a mors beautiful lot of women than her compeers, and with these inherent attractions there can be no wonder that she holds the premier position in the Colony of New Zealand.