The township of Martinborough is laid out on a broad plain, and is situated so as to form a half-way-house between the Lower Valley, Greytown, and Featherston. With the two latter places it has communication by coach, having a daily mail service with Featherston. It is about ten miles from the Featherston Railway Station and twelve from Greytown. The original village was called Te Waihinga, but later the late Hon. John Martin cut up a piece of his estate there and laid out the present town. It has a spacious square for its centre, and broad street-lines radiate to all points. The town has necessarily progressed slowly, because there is no large industry either within or near it to attract population; nevertheless it has progressed, and is well supported by the surrounding stations. There are two large hotels, handsome buildings both; a public school, post and telegraph offices recently erected, public library put up and stocked with books almost entirely by the donations and subscriptions of the people page 862 of the neighbourhood. There are three churches—Anglican, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic, and latterly an outpost of the ubiquitous Salvation Army has begun to skirmish in the township. There are the usual stores, smithies, etc., and the people appear prosperous and enterprising. it is a great sporting community, and an annual race meeting has been held in this town from the very earliest time of settlement. Martinborough suffers from want of local self-government, and is a typical instance of the difficulty of governing small towns by large bodies at a distance. The old town boards having being abolished, and the place not having population enough to be constituted a borough, it comes under the jurisdiction of the Featherston Road Board, which body cannot fairly expend rates on such luxuries as footpaths, lighting, etc., in the town when the borough roads take all the money it can obtain to keep them in anything like decent order. The town still grows, however, and the time will come when it will be a flourishing borough. There is a great area of land surrounding it suitable for small farmers, and the advance of settlement will one day see it cut up and occupied. In fact, the Hon. Mr. Martin did, years ago, cut up the land for such a purpose, but he was a little ahead of the times, and the farms were not then taken up. When closer settlement eventuates, the town of Martinborough will, from its situation, he one of the most prosperous in the district. Particulars re mails will be found in the article on the Post-office.