Chap. VI. INEFFICIENT GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS. 167 
" to him who is spending hundreds and thousands of 
*' Port Nicholson money on his kitchens and ve- 
" randahs." 
" A decent building for a post-office is also espe^ 
" cially required. On Sunday last we saw INIr. Mantell 
" stuffing an old potato-sack amongst the reeds of the 
'* dilapidated hut he occupies as Postmaster, to prevent 
" the wind from blowing the letters off the table on 
" which he had assorted them for delivery. There are 
" no conveniences for the performance of his duties, 
" and it is really unfair to expect regularity and de- 
" spatch from a public officer to whom the commonest 
" facilities for discharging his duties are denied." 
" What makes the neglect of the Government to 
" furnish a good police-office and post-office most dis- 
" creditable and unjust, is the undoubted fact, that the 
" Port Nicholson contributions to the public treasury 
" amount to many thousands per annum. One-fifteenth 
•' part of the revenue collected here and remitted to 
" Auckland would suffice for the buildings needed ; 
" but this cannot be had, because of the waste at Go- 
" vernment-house and the numerous sinecures at the 
" guiioi Hauraki. A Government more shamelessly 
" prodigal, and at the same time more pitifully mean, 
" never insulted a British community." 
About this time New Zealand began to turn the 
tables on the Van Diemen's Land crimps ; and a \ essel 
arrived from Launceston with several labourers from 
thence. They had accompanied a party of those who, 
having been induced to leave Wellington some year or 
two before, had gladly returned. These indeed declared 
that they had rather live in New Zealand without a 
shirt to their backs, than in the penal colony of Van 
Diemen's Land with two. 
In this month a second newspaper was started at 
