military force to maintain the peace where disturbance was unlikely to be known, was only equalled in its absurdity by some of the later performances. A vaunting display of officialism seems to have been the pervading idea of the "authorities" in Wellington, and in subsequent details instances of this will be given. The chief constable had very soon afterwards an addition made to his dignity by his appointment as Resident Magistrate and sub-treasurer, and the genus Justices of the Peace so grew apace, that in a short time it consisted of one J.P. for every twenty of the whole male inhabitants.
To solace the remaining portion of the residents, and to give a stamp of authority to the action of the officials, in February, 1850, the "authorities" in Wellington generously proclaimed Dunedin entitled to the name of town. A town certainly, with plenty officers to administer laws, regarding which the people were in total darkness, and of which the magistrates themselves were profoundly ignorant. As a crowning favour, the Governor himself paid an official visit to the newly created town, held a levee, and was informed by one of the presentees that "the place was hard up for leather; they had plenty of everything else." His Excellency appreciated the sentiment. However, he did not consider it went far enough. So in an address to the public he somewhat astounded his audience by saying that it was his intention to recommend the Home Government to sanction his proclamation of a Lieutenant-Governor with attached staff, at a cost of a few thousands a year, to supervise and control the actions of a handful of people whose united earnings would scarcely amount in gross to the sum required to pay the royal representative. This grand idea, however, did not eventuate; but another, equally absurd, was splendidly carried out.
The Dunedinites were slow to perceive the great boon to be derived from a host of rulers and administrators of laws and ordinances, which the people themselves had no say or representation in either framing or passing. It was consequently the duty of the distant "authorities" to force on a recusant community, and against their emphatic protest, the presence of a Resident Judge of the Supreme Court of the colony of New Zealand. Was it not a fact that for the two years that had elapsed since the settlement was formed, one criminal case, and
