OTAGO.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 417, 22 October 1861, Page 3

OTAGO.

(From the Otago Colonist.)

We learn from Melbourne, by the Tasmania, that the excitement there regarding our gold-fields is still as great as ever. Numerous vessels continue to arrive with passengers. During the past week 25 have been entered inwards with 2384 passengers. New South Wales has hitherto to a great extent escaped the infection, but now that state of things is over. Report says that hundreds may daily be expected from Syduey. Indeed Australia and New Zealand seem moved to their very centres by the discovery of gold ill Gabriel's Gully. Numbers of those who came over with high hopes of immediate success are greatly disappointed, and are returning with all possible speed. About 800 people must have left Otago this week to go back to their former gold fields, or their agricultural pursuits. Many more would go if they had the means. The Government are now giving ss. a-day for laborers, and very many are accepting the offer. It is only right these facts should be known, so that that extraordinary enthusiasm for Otago gold, which seems to possess many, may be put on a fair basis, and that those who insist on coming here may know what tliey are coming to. It is true this Province will be much ben"fited by the fine men we are getting from other places, and no doubt some of tln-m will .find it to their advantage to come here; but several will be disappointed who have not made a just calculation ot the yield of gold to the number of diggers.

We have it on authority to mention that tiie Provincial Government of Otago have withdrawn all restrictions against the introduction of cattle from the Northern island; and if the importers can only show a declaration duly authenticated that the cattle have not been imported from Australia, and a clean bill of health from the shipping port, they will experience no difficulty in lauding their stock at Dunedm. If the rush to the diggings continues at the present rate there will shortly be some 20,000 or 30,000 mouths to feed at least, and a good stroke of business could be done in the internal carrying trade by carts to the diggings. The roada are improving every hour.

Election.—Mr. Paterson has been elected to serve in the Provincial Council for the city of Dunedin, in the room of Mr; T. B. Gillie-. Meat.—Day by day we are compelled to eat animal food of a villainous description. Our mutton is poor and tasteless; our be^f is poorer still, and frequently its taste is more than wt can bear; while both aie proportionately expensive. True, far away in the interior, and even at the gold-fields, the quality of oar meat is greatly improved ; but in Dunedin, our metropolis and centre of population, matters grow daily worse. Prices must rise, arid let us ask if bur prohibitory laws can sustain their legitimate effect ? Population is crowding to our shores. Already the cries of expected famine have been begun in low murmurs. The sound has gone out to the neighboring colonies that one of the necessaries of life is commanding fabulous prices in this market.