_Rents and Lodging_ Wooden Houses, unfurnished Two small rooms and kitchen, £60 to £80 per annum Lodgings, unfurnished One small room, £1 per week Board and Lodging Board, being without malt or spirituous liquors, and Lodging, a bed in a room with others, £2 per week _Wages_ Carpenters 16s. to 20s. per day Brickmakers 10s. per day Labourers 8s. per day Men Servants £4 per month, and board Maid Servants £36 per annum, and board Boys 10s. per week, and board After the Government had established itself at Auckland, one of the first duties which it undertook was to provide settlers with land. On April 19-20, 1841, the first sale of town lots by auction was held, and the figures realised were stupendous, due to jobbing, which land sharks from Sydney and other parts of Australia had fostered. According to the official "Gazette," only 116 allotments were sold, the total area comprising 38 acres 1 rood 28 perches, realising £21,299 9s. In addition, twelve allotments measuring 5 acres 3 roods 2½ perches were reserved for Government officers, and realised £2,976 8s. 9d. Among the names of the purchasers will be found some of Auckland's most respected citizens, who had the confidence, even in those early days, that Auckland was destined to be a big city. The size of the town allotments varied from approximately a quarter to half an acre. The plan of the town was the work of Mr. Felton Mathew, Surveyor-General, its principal features being a circus where Albert Park now stands, balanced on the western side of Queen Street by a square, into which Hobson Street and Victoria Street now intersect. The sections were designed so that they had a double front, one to the main street, the other to a lane. Some of these lanes survive to the present, for example, High Street. The principal streets were 66 feet wide, the secondary streets 33 feet, and the lanes somewhat less. Unfortunately for the city's future, the owners of sections subdivided their lots, and the lanes automatically became important thoroughfares. To-day these narrow streets are completely congested with the traffic, and widening operations must inevitably take place. O'Connell Street, one of those lanes (where the first wooden house[15] erected in Auckland stood for some eighty years), has just undergone this process of widening, and others must follow.