Orangemen, Oddfellows, Foresters, etc. There is the Auckland Institute
and Museum, the Acclimatization Society, Agricultural Society,
Benevolent Societies, etc. There are Cricketing, Rowing, and Yachting
Clubs. There is a mayor and City Council, with Harbour Board, Highway
Board, Domain Board, and Improvement Commissions. There is the Supreme
Court, the District Court, the Resident Magistrate's Court, and the
Police Court. There are public and circulating libraries, two daily
morning newspapers, an evening newspaper, two weekly newspapers, two
weekly journals of fiction, and two monthly religious periodicals.

The city is lighted by gas supplied by a private company; and the
water-supply is under municipal control. It returns three members to the
House of Representatives, while Parnell and Newton each return one. So
much and more does our cicerone favour us with, until he has, as he
thinks, convinced us that Auckland is really the finest place of
residence in the world.

We now pass down into the city again, taking a new route past the
Northern Club, a lofty and unsightly building, whose members are
notoriously hospitable, and much given to whist and euchre. Downhill a
short distance, and we come to the Albert Barracks, where newly-arrived
immigrants are housed, and where most of our sometime shipmates now are.
They are comfortably quartered here for the present, but no incitement
is held out to them to remain long, and every inducement is given them
to get an engagement and quit as soon as may be. It seldom happens that
there is any difficulty in this; usually, indeed, there is a rush to
engage the new-comers, so much are servants and labourers, mechanics and
artizans in request.

There have been times when would-be employers would go off in
shore-boats to the immigrant ship in the harbour, and though not allowed
on board, would make efforts to hire domestics and labourers at the side
of the vessel. Again, when the government immigrants were landed, and
were marched up from the wharf to the barracks, a mob of employers would
escort the procession, endeavouring to hire helps, and with such success
that sometimes the barracks were hardly needed at all. But such scenes
are becoming rarer now, though there must continue, for many years to
come, to be a run upon certain classes of immigrants, notably single
girls for house-servants.[2]

Turning into the barrack-yard, round which are the various buildings
where the immi