outcome of private enterprise, and give but a faint idea of the stir and bustle of the earlier years of the golden age.
The Provincial Government had heavy responsibilities cast on them by the new state of affairs. The maintenance of order and suppression of crime were theirs. A thoroughly efficient police force must be at once obtained, and in response to a request to the Victorian Government a commissioner and number of men were at once sent across from Melbourne, of whom any country in the world might be proud. St. John Brannigan and his officers and men had arduous and daring duties to perform in a country with which they were unacquainted, in a climate far more severe than that to which they had been accustomed, and in houseless, trackless mountainous regions, hardly fit at the time for human habitation. These duties were gallantly performed even to the sacrifice of the lives of several of their number. And the greater honour is due to the memories of some of them from the fact that they perished when out searching for some poor digger who had lost himself in the angry piercing snow storms which so often occur in the mountainous regions.
Owing greatly to the vigilance of the police, the record of crime of a serious character was a very light one. A case or two of sticking up, and one case of murder—which never was traced—another of poisoning, for which the culprit forfeited his life,—the first execution in Otago—were the only blots on Dunedin history. Not satisfied, however, with the police, the Government obtained a detachment of officers and men of the 70th Regiment, to be ready for any emergency. It was a needless precaution, however, so after about eighteen months' stay this only representation of the British army which had ever set foot on Otago shore, or is ever likely to do so, took its departure.
To provide wharf accommodation was also incumbent on the Government, so the wharf at Jetty-street was greatly extended, widened, and strengthened; new ones were also speedily run out at Rattray and Stuart-streets, and every effort made to give facilities for the landing of goods. In carrying out these new works, the first steps were also taken in harbour reclamation. The work of reducing Bell Hill began in October 1862, the excuse being that the stuff was needed to fill in the foreshore and form Bond and Jetty-streets.
