THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 136, 10 June 1871, Page 2

THE WEEK.

The game is proceeding merrily. I thought that our Provincial Council had done moderately well in stating its willingness to incur liabilities to the tune of £300,000, but there is this to be said in its favor, that we have a very fair revenue, unburdened to any appreciable extent with interests on previous loans, out of which we are enable! to spend some £30,000 or £40,000 on public works, and besides, it is only proposed to borrow money for works that, it is hoped, will prove remunerative. In the province of Wellington they are in a far different state. Setting on one side their £295,000 of funded debt, the interest and sinking fund on which is guaranteed by the Colonial Government and provided for out of capitation allowances, they have unsecured liabilities to the amount of nearly £39,000, " all more or less urgent," while the ordinary income available within the year caunot be estimated at more than £34,246, thus leaving a deficit of between £4000 and £5000 without allowing one penny for departmental^ expenditure,^estimated at £33,588, not to say a word of anything for public works. In addition to this there is a little item of £27,000 for arrears of survey which the Superintendent thinks ought to be met as. speedily as possible. In this highly .. prosperous state of affairs, his Honor comes down to the Council with a propositiou to borrow £100,000. To me there is something most delightful in the cool way in which we now go in for hundreds of thousands of pounds, but this by way of parenthesis. In order to smooth away any little difficulties that might present themselves to the minds of any of the more cautious members of the Council, lie observed that in reckoning upon the means for meeting the additional interest, &c. on the proposed loans it was il but fair to take into account the increased power of payment which works of improvement such as those proposed would confer upon the province." This increased power of payment, be it remembered, is to be the result of £30,000 which is all that is to be spent upon " works of improvement " out of the £100,000, the remainder being swallowed up in paying off old debts. Verily the Vogelian spirit is abroad. Revenue, £34,2 56 ; Proposed expenditure, £129,438 ! Who shall cavil at this ? Who dare say a word agaiust a man who by his precept and practice, has brought such mighty things to pass ? Let us , rather build a magnificent temple — with borrowed money of course — aud dedicate it to the "great conjuror, inscribe over its golden portals, as the most fitting motto to be found, "Take no thought for the morrow," and then throw up our hats in triumph and in joy, and shout Great is Julius of the New Zealanders. I had no intention of devoting so much space to Wellington and her finances, but one cannot help watching with interest how thoroughly we are becoming imbued with the speculative spirit that burst forth with such vigor in the last session of the General Assembly, and which is spreading so extensively throughout the whole colony. May we never rue the day when New Zealand, in despair, rushed so eagerly, so wildly — shall I say so blindly ? — into the net of indebtedness whose meshes were so alluringly spread before her by that clever tempter, the Colonial Treasurer ! It is satisfactory to find that at last a

move is being made in the direction of remedying the evil from which the inhabitants of the town are suffering in the shape of over-greed on the part of the Insurance offices. While fully alive to the existence of this evil, I cannot but think that its long coutinuance is entirely owing to the apathy of those who are the maiu sufferers by it. They have hitherto been perfectly contented to pay the highest rates that could possibly be extorted from> them, and it is not to be wondered at if the Insurance offices are quite as well satisfied to receive them so long as they have to deal with a number of people to whom money appears to be no object. But the Nelson folk appear at last to be actually alive to the fact that they are paying exorbitant premiums, and are talking of establishing a Mutual Insurance Company. Id the absence of the necessary statistics it is impossible to form any opinion as to the probable success of such an institution, but it will, I believe, have the effect of inducing the various offices to become a little more moderate in their demands. To me it appears, and always has appeared, out of all reason that the premiums should be precisely the same cow as when we had nothing more to depend upon for protection against fire than a very small and very inefficient engine, and an exceedingly limited water supply. The almost impossibility of any large fire now occurring within reach of the waßerpipes has been proved over and over again, and yet no reduction has been made in our contributions to the Insurance Offices. I have at one time or another referred to this matter so frequently that I cannot but express my pleasure at finding that some steps are at last to be taken in the direction of putting a stop to what cannot be regarded as otherwise than a wilful waste of money. Our little army is about to undergo its periodical inspection by Col. Harrington, who is now here for the purpose. On his last visit he was not able to speak in very flattering terms of its efficiency, but it is to be hoped that considerable improvements have been effected since then. We shall see o*h Tuesday, for which day the inspectio^par^ide of the Town Company has been ordered. F. For remainder of news see fourth page.

An Auckland correspondent of a contemporary says : — " Magnificent specimens from tho Caledonian claim are frequently exhibited. One I have seen weighed at least 2 cwt, and appeared to be nearly solid gold. One gentleman here lately drew a dividend of £4000, and a shoemaker living in Queen-street got £1100." The latest novelties, says the Post, are evening shoes for ladies, which are made with gilt heels, a very great deal of gold embroidery over the instep, and gilt caps to the toes. We trust that those of our domestic helps, who are generally kind enough to air the latest fashions in female attire before the admiring gaze of the male population of Wellington will lose no time in procuring the gold embroidered shoes. The New Zealand Insurance Company, who -were losers by the late fire in Pittstreet, Auckland, to the extent of £1900, have offered a reward of £300 for information that will lead to the conviction of the persons who set fire to the house in which the conflagration first originated. The company are evideutly under the conviction that the calamitous fire was the work of incendiarism ; and if they are correct in their assumption, the amount of reward which they offer ought to have the effect of bringing the incendiary to jusiice. A Christchurch paper says : — We are glad to learn that there is a reasonable prospect of a company being floated in this province for the manufacture of salt by the evaporation of salt watery The project has been warmly taken . ifp by several leading merchants anjl others, and those who have a technical knowledge of the subject are convinced that Canterbury possesses unusual natural advantages and facilities for the enterprise. It is highly probable that, under these favorable circumstances, definite proposals will shortly 'be laid before the public. In the meantime, we wish the promoters the success which their public and commercial sjflrit deserves. A man named Shevelin was recently arrested at Napier, Hawke's Bay, upon a charge of lunacy. Amongst other vagaries he purchased a cask of beer and 48 loaves of bread, also a quantity of tobacco and pipes, his purchases amounting to about £9. He had them all carted to the old rifle butts, and deposited there, after which he went home to dinner. After dinner he sharpened a large knife, and alarmed people by flourishing it round his head. In reply to the magistrate, the man said he bought these things " to satisfy a noise in his ear. He had paid for them, and it was his own business what he did with them. He sharpened the knife to cut a string in his ear. " He wished his knife and razor to be returned to him. This was, of course, refused. The poor man was remanded for medical examination. We take the following with reference to the Land Transfer Act from the Wellington Independent; — Mr. Moorhouse, the Registrar-General of Land, has returned from the South, where he appears to have had his time well occupied iv attending to the necessary details connected with the issuing of land brokers' licenses. Some of our southern contemporaries are bristling with advertisements from those who are seeking "to get to windward " of the lawyers, and in one journal we notice counter advertisements from solicitors, who offer to conduct business under the new system at the same rates as the land brokers. Although a very fair beginniug had been made previously, we are informed that since the brokers have got to work the influx of business into the offices in Christchurch and Dunedin has been very great. We believe tftat up to the present time between forty and fifty applications for licenses have been granted. The aspect of Pictou is decidedly depressing. It is built on a small flat surrounded by steep hills, for the most part bare of trees or scrub. It seems entirely shut out — or shut in, the terms in this case are synonymous — from tfie rest of the world: "a jumping off place," as the Yankees say. "The only thing that Picton is adapted for," said a fellow-pas-senger of mine, " is a graveyard" ; and I don't think he was very far wrong! Blenheim, I was told , was a considerably larger place, and it would require to be so if the projected Picton and Blenheim { railway is not to be anything more than a costly farce ; for the whole of Picton — houses, inhabitants, and all — could be carried away in a single train. Sheep were grazing in the middle of the main street in the centre of the town, and the inhabitants stared at us as the original ' inhabitants of the Sound no doubt did at Captain Cook, as if they wondered what had brought us to that out of the way comer of the world. — Correspondent of Otago Daily Times. A Woodlands correspondent sends the following :— The New Zealand Meat Preserving Company ara preserving over

8,000 sheep weekly at their establishment during the last two months. Their exports per mouth have been over 300 tons preserved meat and 150 tons tallow. The establishments at Tiraaru, Kakanui, and "Woodlands havo been laid out to consume, and are able to do so just now, fully 13,000 weekly, but at each of the places not a single lb. can be tinned more than is at present done, owing to the tinsmith department being unable to produce the number of tins wanted. The Compauy would require double the staff of tinsmiths to do the work although their hands in this department alone number over 90. Arrangements -will be made next winter which will ensure a considerable addition to the working capabilities, and we are authorised to state that a guarantee would bo given that during the months of November to July next 4000 sheep or 250 bullocks weekly would be consumed. Tradesmen are earning between £4 aud £5 weekly at making tins. At Woodlands over 120 hands are at work just now. The Melbourne Leader asks — Are the children of clergymen trained up in the way they should go, and if so, why do they depart from it ? At this moment her Majesty's gaoler has under lock and key for fraud and embezzlement three young men, Draper, Taylor, aud Love, sons of clergymen; men who moved in the best society, and whose social standing acquired for them situations of trust, which they abused as ruthlessly as Bill Sykes would pick a padlock, or a gentleman's pocket. If this class of crime ran so regularly in any other groove of society, we should be disposed to say that the 'neglect of the parents was visited upon the children, but it is difficult to believe that men who inculcate from the pulpit lessons of religion and morality for the good of the multitude, fail to inculcate those same lessons in the membei-3 of their own households. Is it that the children of clergymen are overtaught in their youth, until what administered in moderation to other young people is a pleasure, becomes a burden to them ? The singular fact of so many sons of clergymen falling into evil courses is only to be explained upon some such hypothesis. Debarred in their early youth from rational pleasures that elevate and purify the mind, and render it better capable of receiving strong moral impressions, many young men rush from rigid parental discipline into tho wildest excesses at the first opportunity that is afforded them. Whereas, if liberty without license, had been permitted them at an earlier age, the subsequent temptation to run into riotous pleasure would have lost its attractive glitter. Tramways. — A new "wrinkle" in tramways has been introduced by Mr. Hadden, C.E., for the purpose of traffic across some of the interior regions of Turkey. It is not without interest in relation to communication in this country. It is a single rail tramway, of which the following is a description: — "Imagine a bicycle let into a longitudinal aperture in the centre of the bottom of a cart, and the cart nearly touching the ground, so that only about six inches of the wheels would be visible; next, a kind of balancing pole run through the sides of the cart at right angles to the single rail, on which the bicycle is to run. The two ends of/ the pole are to project about thpee feei on either side of the cart, and rest upon and be harnessed to the backs of two mules. The animals will thus be one at each side of the load, instead of being in front in the ordinary way. It would be impossible for the cart to turn over, because, in order to do so, it would have to force one mule to the ground and to lift the other into the air ; and, moreover, as its floor would onlyTse six inches above the rail, an overtip would be.of no account. All the weight in the cart, if ••evenly distributed, would bear upon the rail, and the animals, having no load oia their backs would be able to exert considerable traction power." Mr. Haddan does not consider that the utility of his invention will be limited by the precise conditions that first called for it. He not only suggests its employment for military purposes, but also for tramways in. large cities ; and he says that, where space is very valuable, a horse or mule on only one side of the cart would be sufficient. In towns, on bridges and other important places, the rail might for a short distance be dispensed with :; and passenger > vehicles should be fitted with small friction wheels on either side, so that, if a horse should fall down, the balance of the car should remain undisturbed. We are not aware whether there is any near prospect of the idea being realised, even in Turkey; but it seems sufficiently ingenious to deserve at least publicity. Prince Bismarck received, on the Ist of April, his fifty-sixth birthday, such a number of addresses and congratulations that several clerks will be employed for a considerable time to sort sod report . ou them.