"SLEEPY NELSON."

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 531, 17 July 1869, Page 2

"SLEEPY NELSON."

Tlie Nelson correspondent of tbe Otago Daily Times thus discourses on tbe proverbially somniferous character of tbe Nelson climate and its people:— At present, public feeling respecting the future of what is very unjustly called " sleepy Nelson " has received a slight fillip, by the announcement of some progressive steps having been taken in London in the matter of the much talked of question of a railway from Nelson to the West Coast. Par parenfJiese, I must enter my protest against the accusation of Nelson being " sleepy." It is a quiet, sunny, picturesque little city—admittedly the 'moat beautiful in New Zealand, and enjoying the best climate in the colony. An admirable sanitarium, the beat place for invalids, inasmuch as throughout the winter—unless during rain, which visits us for three days, say once a month in the season, and is succeeded immediately by the customary clear blue Italian sky—there is always five or six hours of fine warm sunshine

daily; and there 1b no lack of enterprise, which is only checked at times by reason of what touches other provinces and other cities as much as this —an occasional scarcity of ready money. We have a cloth manufactory, now celebrated for its products. A private company has started, with excellent promise of success, the opening of a coal mine at Collingwood, and is, unaided, making a tramway from the mine to the sea. This work has been going on for some eight or nine months, and its projectors are sanguine of success and handsome dividends; and there is good reason to anticipate both. A settler in this city has sent home for one of the celebrated india-rubber tired road steamers; and as Nelson possesses the best roads in the colony, this machine will work well, and it is expected will reduce the cost of carriage of timber, and other produce, by at least one-half. In politics we are not sleepy. Is it not written that Nelson city did what the House of Eepresentatives did two days ago — effectually request Mr Stafford to resign ? " Sleepy Nelson!" Perish the calumny! These are not the ordinary fruits of lotus-eating. And now, having gracefully given vent to my natural indignation at such a frequently repeated injustice, I hope the slander is slain for ever; and I return to the railway question.