OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 240, 5 September 1872, Page 6

OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US

A few months ago we had occasion to notice a prospectus which heralded the issue of "The traveller's guide through New Zealand," from the press of Mr G. T. Chapman, of Auckland, whose name has heretofore been a guarantee of the excellence of the works published by him. The work itself has now appeared ; but we have have not been among the favored journals to whom it has been sent for review. A copy of it, however, has fallen in our way, and as the book has been sent down here for sale, we feel it to-be our duty to show how thoroughly unreliable it is as a work of reference Before proceeding to state in what particulars it i* inaccurate in regard to its description of Dunedin, we may observe that in two papers received by the last Northern mail we notice very unfavorable criticisms of the bo >k, from which we extract a few passages to illustrate our assertion that the book is simply a guide to the province of Auckland, and, as furnishing any idea of the ether towns in the Colony, is utterly worthless. Alluding to it, the Marlborough Express says :—: — " The writer has such a decided screw to the N.E. by N., that we should most decidedly decline to accept him as a guide, for let us sail which way we might, we should be bound to ran stern on to Auckland. . . . Marlborough is most unfairly treated. Commencing with the map ; it is unstained by the name of a single place, town, or river !" Thus saith the Evening Post :— " It is full of misrepresentations and of evidences of lamentable ignorance. We are informed that the entrance to Port Nicholson is ' nearly half a mile wide, but is narrowed by numerous sunken rocks,' the steam launch at Napier comes in animadversion, and reckless inistatements are made concerning it, which, upon personal knowledge of the little steamer in question, we unhesitatingly characterise as gross falsehoods. Government house at Wellington is compared to the 'pretensioua mansion of a retired pawnbroker ;' the town is the most backward in New Zealand ; an agricultural enumerator has to ride • 100 miles for entry of half an acre of hay,' and another hundred for- 'entry of half an acre of potatoes ; and, finally that the valley of the Upper and Lower Hutt is about the most 'wretched scene of desolation and abject misery ever seen. ' " We must accept ! the description of Auckland as being correct, for the work is loudly praised by our contemporaries of that City ; but fancy a guidebook to that Province which contains no mention of the wonders of the Province and Colony— the Taupo country, or of the hot springs and lakes ! ' , We will now go through those pages of the book devoted to " Otago Harbor" and "Dwedia Mid wburbi, 'V . W« are toldthcre j

is "17 feet of water on thebar at the Heads," where the current runs so strong that ".vessels can #niy enter at half-flood " The author of this precious bock visited Otago twentyfour yeankjigp ; and he returns to it to find the bar has four feet less water on it than then; while off Point Harrington "the water is 20 f pet" deeper." "The north entrance channel is Bitting np ; and the passage up to where the Maori village used to be is much wider ; the village itself, with j its neatly fenced cultivations, that, ex-.! tended from the beach to the top of the hill, has disappeared, the sand having covered the whole nearly ten feet deep." The steamer with our traveller on board anchors off the "little village" of Port Chalmers— the liilh round about which look bare ami desolate, not even a gum tree (the pride of the aristocrats of Dunedin) is visible ; and we are gravely told that visitors to Dunedin may f g«> there by steamer, by coach, or "by the railway which now runs from the Port. " Arrive! in Dunedin, the traveller at once finds himself in Princes street — wondrous fact !— the principal buildings in which are the Provincial Government buildings, " a massive pile of brickwork," which is now called University[buildingß, and "contains all the departments of the local government . . . while the south and east side is filled with a most valuable collection of curiosities — the Otago Museum — the gold dust and quartz specimens, seldom shown to strangers, being valued at a very large amount. But the arrangement of the Beveral articles in their show cases exhibits a degree of ignorauce, incapacity, or careless indifference that, to a stranger, is quite annoying ; in f act, the want of taste and order displayed would be inexcusable, anywhere but in Dunedin. Ihe next building, we are told, is the Post j Office^ "a very grand looking edifice, having a tower and a clock, of which the inhabitants Beem very proud. Some parts of this building are finished elaborately in carved Oamaru stone, which looks dingy .and sadly out of repair, after a year or two's exposure. A little putty and paint would make the angelic figures mor; pleasing, at least to pious persons, like his Honor the Superintendent." And iv this building, with the clock and tower, are located the Post and Telegraph Offices ! The Custom House, 4 much more sensible looking structure, is said "to look as if it had been built for a prison or a penitentiary" ; while the Supreme Court-house is compared te one of the old identities — " a desperate shabby appearance outside, with a great display of red and green baize, gilt borders, and varnished doors inside." Coming to the hospital our traveller begins to moralize, because everything in Dunedin, the Museum excepted, is arranged with the greatest consideration. " Thus in Princes street, one finds a handsome banking establishment, and next door to it a very grand hotel ; so that the very fortunate digger has only to draw his money fiom the bank and go next door and spend it. And here we have a distillery, with an hospital on one side, and a gaol on the other. Happy Dunedin with such excellent provision for the rising generation. No wonder that it should require a Juvenile Reformatory." Our churches are described as handsome, roomy, and substantial, but some have "spires so high and slender that it is dangerous to go near them on a windy day, (Sunday included)." Here is a passage that contains a few truths, and as gross a libel as was ever published. — "The Athen»um is well conduced — excepting the underground gambling tteparlment— and is a very comfortable literary lounge. The library is small and not select. The conamitteee must be (old identities), if we may judge from the ancient character of the books in the circulating library ; but the reading and reference rooms are commodious and well-lighted, and the librarian, for a wonder, is intelligent, civil, and obliging." The banking offices, continues this critic of critics, are very '• pretentious " ; the insurance offices equally stylish ; the hotels are numerous —some of them grand, while the Club comes in for a notice which will not please Mr Jones -"It is a very comfortable place, but the company is not always select, and the management seems defective." Two more extracts, and we have done. " The people of Dunedin are inclined to be fast, but kindly disposed, and seem waiting anxiously for something to turn up ; the two identities reminding one of the meet ing of Alexander and Diogenes. . . . The merchants of Dunedin and shopkeepers of Dunedin seem -wanting in ent«rprieej for they draw nearly all their supplies from Melbourne, much the same as the shopkeepers in Wellington and Nelson ; in fact, they merely act as commission agents for the Melbourne merchants."

Our extracts from th« book are taken from eight pages of it, and from them our readers can form a good Mea of the misrepresentation that exists in the remainder. A more trashy work was never published in the Colony, and we agree with a contemporary in hoping that Mr Chapman, whose " Almanac" and " Pilot" are really reliable works, will at once cashier the person who has imposed on him such an affair, and without delay hasten to get up another and more perfect edition.