The Southern City.

Many methods have been adopted by visitors in going through the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition, and seeing Dunedin. While I was in lodgings here, two lady teachers arrived from Wellington to see the Big Show. They were limited to one week, in which time they resolved to go systematically through the Exhibition, and to see the sights of Dunedin and neighborhood—and they did. They rose early, and laid out their plans for the day. They would leave home at 9 a.m. and see the sights, taking dinner and tea wherever they might happen to be, and then spend an evening in the Exhibition, reaching home at 11 p.m. One day, from 10 a.m. to 10.30 p.m., was wholly devoted to the Exhibition; another was spent at Mosgiel, looking over the factory and other places of interest. Again the Museum was visited, the Botanical Gardens, the Waterfalls, Ocean Beach and St Clair, a ride upon the Roslyn and Mornington cable tramways. The collection of pictures in the Town Hall was not forgotten, and the Sunday was spent in St Paul's (Anglican) and Knox (Presbyterian) churches in the morning and evening, while the fine Northern Cemetery took up the afternoon. In this manner Dunedin may be seen inside of a week's time, but it is a rush to do it.

Dunedin, apart from the Exhibition, is a very interesting town to visit, being most picturesquely situated. Wellington suggests the idea of a city lying at the bottom of an extinct crater. Christchurch is a city of straight lines, flat, and somewhat uninteresting,— the relieving features being the river Avon and the finest museum in the Australasian colonies. But Dunedin has sights so various as to suit all tastes. Its buildings in many instances are fifty years before their lime, the Government buildings—notably Supreme Court, Post Office, and Insurance—being the shabbiest. Hill and dell abound in charming variety, the tram service is efficient and cheap, there are ample means of conveyance to the places of interest outside the city, while the Southern train is slow enough to allow the man of dullest perceptive faculty to take in the beauties of nature lying within range.

South Dunedin is built upon what is in the brevity of wit termed « The Elat, » which is not meant as a term of flattery, and as I have been informed that one can rent a house there for 1/- per week, I reckon it can be no rise to be a dweller therein. The sights of South Dunedin are the Exhibition, Ocean Beach,—and Mr Fish's constituency. It is somewhat difficult to say which is the greatest curiosity—the exhibition, containing the record of a civilization and colonization of only fifty years,—apparently showing this, yet in reality showing the progress of the world; the white, and to all appearances firm sandy beach, but which abounds in dangerous quicksands; or the South Dunedin electorate.

North Dunedin is that part of the city whereupon are high dwellings and high rents. It is the quarter of intellectuality, and contains the University, the Museum, and the Botanical Gardens. It is in this direction that NicholFs Creek is located, and through the bush which the stream meanders along are to be seen « The Waterfalls » and other natural beauties, which Dunedinites seem to have just discovered,

It is in the same direction as these falls that Messrs Fergusson and Mitchell's Otago Paper Mills are situated, being in the Woodhaugh Valley, a most picturesque spot, nearly two miles from the city. The first printing-paper made in New Zealand was manufactured in this mill for the Wellington Exhibition in 1885. Brown paper is the chief product, but grey (for woollen mills' and grocers' use), blue (for candle packing) and nearly every class of packing paper is turned out. Neither the Mataura nor this mill, the only paper mills in the colony, find it profitable to produce white printing-paper, although both mills can do it. Paper bags are made both by hand and machine. The manager, Mr Grant, is very courteous to visitors. They are shown the yard full of flotsam and jetsam, rags, in fact everything cast away by man and woman seems to be good for paper, but old rope is the most acceptable; then the chopping-room, the mashing- and boiling-room, in which one sees rope, rags, and tussocks all boiled together into pulp; then up to the pulp-baths, which overlook the long machine into one end of which the liquid runs. Following the revolutions of the cylinders one sees the pulp gradually thicken on the web, when it becomes strong enough to forsake the web and roll on in its own strength towards the drying and steaming cylinders, and two minutes after entering as a liquid, a piece of brown paper is torn off and given to the visitor. In another room a wonderful bag-making machine is seen at work. I strongly advise all visiting members of the Craft to find their way to this interesting factory.

T.L.M.