THE PUBLIC MEETING AND MILITIA.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 279, 22 June 1860, Page 2

THE PUBLIC MEETING AND MILITIA.

[communicated,"! • It is much to. be regretted that His Excellency the Governor should remain in. a state of ignorance as to how he might have been induced to allow the Militia of this Province to be called out. . A certain" few persons feeling, I suppose, chagrined at having bound themselves as Volunteers, and vexed that others would not be dictated' to,' hit upon the plan of, having a pretended Public Meeting, the {startling news from Auckland giving too good an opportunity to be lost—so the gathering adjourned, I believe from an Hotel where there is a. room large enough to contain nearly twice as many as the Court-house; but a meeting at the Court-house "would look well in the papers, and,' of course, blind the eyes of readers at Auckland andelsevvh6Fe,"but for^^ whow JnligKteniheM Jjgive the dimensions of this said- Court-house,, anxHeave them, to judge whether it- is possible Ja. public meeting can be held in it, and of the honesty of calling a meeting, within it, one, especially when it is known a meeting of five or six hundred can be and has been collected in a half an hour, or an hour, within a comparatively few yards distance. The standing room in this Court House for the accommodation of the public consists of a space measuring eight by fifteen feet, or one hundred and twenty feet superficial, and by allowing each person two feet square, or seventeen inches by seventeen inches (which will be packing them as close as pickled sardines) it will hold the enormous number, of sixty! I must notforget the jury box,' nor the prisoner's and witness boxes^nor the, seats at the clerk's table, nor the standing room at the doorway, which, together, will enable about forty* five more at the most, making, when full a total of one hundred and five!! to gain an, approximate of the black hole at Calcutta. "'''.„■, ;

I see in the Examiner, the Chairman of the 10 o'clock-at-night meeting on the 7th April, is made to say that it was the " spontaneous congregation of the inhabitannts of the town." I confidently leave this assertion to be dealt-with by the inhabitants of the town! .

I congratulate the working men-of-Nelson upon the fraternal endeavors of their brother " Ouvriert ■' to assist some of them to pay' up their arrears 6f<- . taxes, by succeeding in drawing them fronitheir work two half days a week. , Will Messieurs, the promoters of theten o'clock-at-night meeting, dave to call a hma,f4e Public Meeting and propose the same or similar resolutions? if not, the people of Nelson ought to have one, at which, no doubt, the Superintendent would explain his share in the matter; but "if 'twerq .-' done, 'twew well 'twere done quickly*,"