A VISIT TO COBDEN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 127, 31 May 1871, Page 2

A VISIT TO COBDEN.

"% . o— The fonvwing amusingly melancholy account of a fHp to Cobden is from the Greymouth Evening Star : — Part I. Chap. 11. My entrance into Cobden —The oldest inhabitant —The date of the First Settlement not known —Extrnordinary system of finance — Periodical ch:rage in population —No diminution of nu&ber. v Upon landing I waSwd up the main street of the town."- It ttd an imposing appearance. The residents, I have learned are an imposing people, but only when they want to dispose of sections of land. I was introduced to the oldest inhabitant. He was a youth over whose curly head of hair and Dungaree cap fully eighteen autumns had passed. He possessed much intelligence ; he might have possessed more, but not being of an avaricious disposition, he did not want it. He id formed me that many years ago, whilst sitting in the stern of a boat, engaged iv catching whitebait, some one had cut away the painter arid he had drifted across. Speaking of Cobden proper, he informed me that it was the same then as now ; neither m,ore houses nor less. It had never altered. The population as regards numbers had always been the same —only not the same people. One man would go away suddenly, and it was never known where he had gone to, but another always came to fill up the blank, and occupy his place, although it was never known where he came from. The population was renewed periodically, by new comers taking the place of those 1 departed. A complete change was effected about every two years. The oldest inhabitant, coDtinuing his communication, informed me that the manner of existing in the town of Cobden was' conducted upon a principle which was found to auswer all purposes. It was simple in the extreme. Twenty shillings was made to do as much Service id their community as a thousand times as many in any other. If a butcher wanted a loaf.of bread he went to the baker and paid him a shilling for it, when the baker would go to the butcher and buy' meat to the same amount, and pay him the shilling back again. Both had what they wanted, and the shilling was still worth as much as before the two deals took It would then to the

grocer who would probably pay it away for two drinks to the publican, who would^ perhaps pay it to a boatman, who would give it to the baker, who would give to the butcher, who would afterwards leave it once more in possession of the grocer. The system was found to work admirably. Sometimes the shilling would get lost, or get stowed away so that no one could find it; but it made no other difference than causing a little trouble. In such a case, people trusted everybody as much as everybody trusted them. The trouble was caused by the booking required and the occasional striking of a level balance. It was believed that no town in the world had arrived to such a pitch of finance as Cobden. I inquired of my youthful venerable how first transactions were managed. He said he did not know what first transactions meant. I said his fellow men in that beautiful location of which he was the most ancient representative before trusting one another on, the basis of equality must certainly, in the first instance, be trusted by some some one else. How then was that managed? He said he was sure he could not say. Perhaps in the periodical change of population would be found an explanation. I thanked the oldest inhabitant for the interesting information he had so frankly conveyed to me, and greatly increased the circulating medium of the town by presenting him with a shilling, which he stated would, in less than one hour, change hands a score of times before it came round to his turn to have it again in his possession.