THE OTAGO GOLD EIELDS.

9

C—No. 1

Tour memorialists respectfully beg that your Excellency will be pleased to order that the said land as marked off may be declared open for agricultural purposes, with the right of pasturage to loud fide applicants, without the interference of Messrs. Gardiner and Main. And your memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray. M. L. Duffy, William Price, Edward Lynch, andone hundred and three other signatures.

No. 14. Copy of a Petition (No. 2) from the Mayor and Town Councillors of Clyde and the Inhabitants of the Dunstan District. To His Excellency Sir George Grey, Knight Commander of the Bath, and Commander-in-Chief in and over the Islands of New Zealand, arid Vice-Admiral of the same: We, the undersigned, Residents of the Dunstan and surrounding Districts, your Excellency's petitioners — Humbly Shxwzts: — That the necessity for the establishment of a Supreme Court at Clyde is each day becoming more apparent; so much so, that we cannot in duty to ourselves hesitate any longer in approaching your Excellency in the hope that, by a sufficiency of reasoning, a favourable hearing may be accorded to our prayer. That, lately, a District Court and Court of Appeals has been opened at Clyde, and the advantages derived by the community therefrom arc such as to embolden your petitioners and encourage them to still further efforts in the cause advancement and progress that all important districts and civilized communities should enjoy and command. That the formation and establishment of a Supreme Court would in the minds of your Excellency's petitioners be at once easy and inexpensive now that the District Court is duly established at Clyde, seeing that the officers for such Court would, it is presumed without any additions, discharge such duties as appertain to the Supreme Court, in and over which your petitioners feel confident that His Honor Judge Gray could equally as well preside as over the courts of inferior jurisdiction at present attended by him. That your petitioners would assure your Excellency that the present embarrassments that attend the course of justice are of such a nature as to frustrate the ends thereof, —a journey to Dunedin of one hundred and twenty miles being, by men of business and others, regarded as an insuperable obstacle, and the loss of time and expense in attending the court there has objections that cannot be too greatly considered, especially on the Gold Eiclds, where the loss of a single day may be attended with such a sacrifice as to be almost irreparable. That at the present time, the mining population remaining in the district and Province are no longer imbued with that wandering propensity that formerly so prominently characterized them ; that now mining and agricultural pursuits are marked by the same features of permanent and settled industries, —the result being that a deeper interest is taken in the progress of the country than heretofore by those who have now taken up their abodes in it, and who therefore approach your Excellency, not with the former apathy and indifference that was the consequence of their migrating and unsettled habits, but with the earliest salutations of honafide settlers, who, embarking their whole capital in the country, look to your Excellency for that just recognition of rightful claims in granting what will assuredly prove a lasting benefit alike to the district and State. And, in duty bound, your Excellency's petitioners will ever pray. J. D. Feraud, J.P., Mayor. James Hazlett, ~"| Henry John Cora, kown Councillors. David McConnochie, Charles Goodwin, J L. Wm. Carter, Town Clerk, and four hundred and eight other signatures.