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DUNEDIN AND ITS PECULIARITIES.
287

Scotland, just as Canterbury at a later date was to be the monopoly of adherents of the Church of England. The colony was not especially prosperous under its exclusive system, though the thrifty settlers had not much to complain of except the scarcity of neighbors.

But gold changed the whole scene, and broke down the barrier which the projectors of the colony had erected. In 1861 rich gold-diggings were discovered about seventy miles from Dunedin; diggers flocked in from Australia and from other parts of the world, and from the beginning of the gold rush Dunedin dates its prosperity.

RIVER ISSUING FROM A GLACIER.

It has all the characteristics of a thriving city; gas, paved streets, horse-railways, race-course, theatres, schools, academies, churches, colleges, parks, gardens, museum, manufactories, and numerous other urban things and institutions, all are to be found here. There are three daily papers published in Dunedin, and a score of weeklies and monthlies, and there is an excellent library, supported partly by the municipal authorities, and partly by contributions of enterprising citizens. With its immediate suburbs it has a population of fifty thousand, and is steadily increasing year by year. Its Scotch origin is apparent in the faces and accent of the great majority of the residents, and by the statue of the Scottish poet. Burns, which stands protected by a railing in front of the town-hall. Most of the streets are named after those of Edinburgh and Glasgow.