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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 43, 19 February 1872, Page 4

Twelve different persons in Levuka have initiated a paper currency on their own account. The notes are for very small amounts, and a writer in the Fiji Times states that he lately negotiated about four pounds weight of paper money in exchange for a sovereign. Some of the sovereigns recently imported from the Royal mint are now in circulation in several towns in the Colony. They are a very handsome coin, bearing on one side the head of Her Majesty, with the usual inscription, and on the other -the George and Dragon, with the date 1871. In bis remarks in reply to the address presented to him at the Buller the Hon. Mr. Fox eaid : — Though it was his first visit to Westport, yet. he thought he could claim the distinction of having been the first white man who had swum and waded the waters of the Buller. That was in the year 1846, when in company with Mr. Bruuner and Mr. Heaphy he explored this portion of the island. The following extract from a letter from England, received by a gentleman in Timaru, speaks well for the future of Colonial preserved meats. The letter says: — "All the grocers are selling the preserved meats in large quantities, at 7£d. per Ib. The papers are writing it up, aud before a year has passed it will have become a regular article of consumption. A good lookout for New Zealand." According to the New Zealand Herald, the Auckland Aitillery made a direct but feeble attack upon the clerk of the weather a few days ago, by firing a few salvos of guns about breakfast time. The morning mists having assumed the form of a cloud, a rush was made for Fort Britomart by a body of would-be rainmakers, and several rounds of blank cartridge were fired, in the hopes of startling old Jupiter Pluvius out of his exasperating condition of equanimity. The consequence was the instant dispersion of the mist, arid a wrathful glance from old Father Sol, which made the " Navals" only too glad to hide their diminished heads. The New York Tribune, in its issue of November 8, thus hails the victory of the anli-Tammaoy party in the city and state elections of the previous day :— " The people of this city and state, in their election of yesterday, proclaimed their adhesion to the divine mandate thundered from Sinai — 'Thou shalt not steal ! ' This is the meaning, this the moral of the verdict, which had very little reference to party politics. Reconstruction Ku-Klux outrages, protection, civil service reform, the next presidental contest — each and all are well in their way; but the people of pur state thought 'little, and those of our city nothing at all of them. They were moved to unwonted energy and activity by conclusive evidence of corruption and rascality, and robbery, perpetrated by a portion of their rulers. The plunderers and their accomplices were not at all of one party, but the more conspicuous and powerful among them were so; and the people struck at these as their readiest and surest means of rebuking, arresting and punishing the crimes which were sapping the foundations of republican freedom. Let the full meaning of .this verdict be realised. The people of new York have not pronounced against Democratic thieves only, but against all thieves. They have decided that there shall be a speedy end of all purchase md sale of legislation; of all jobbery and' corruption in office/ of all .'.rings',. for the promotion of personal' interests and mercenary i schemes at the expense of the public good. It means, there shall speedily be inaugurated a new .era of uprightness in goyernmect and -of' frugality :; in- Wamihistration. It mean*

that there shall henceforth be diminished expenditures, reduced taxes^ and steadily decreasing public debts. It means that speculators and plunderers, whether of high or low degree, whether of this party or that, shell be exposed, prosecuted, and subjected to condign punishment. Woe to that party which shall fail to comprehend and heed the lesson !" A St. Louis paper says the fashionable ladies in that city are all smokers. Sewing machines are- soon to be introduced into the public schools in North Carolina. Ten thousand dollars worth of retorted gold was lately obtained from the Nevada mine in a single week. A Chicago paper suggests tha building of a monument out of the safes that withstood the fire. When they invite a man to drink in Colorado, the salutation is— "Will you drive a spike ?" At a "Burglars' Convention" held lately in Vermont, it was resolved after some debate, " that it is expedient to use chloroform on victims." ; . An Enthusiastic Writer to the Sydney MorMng Herald suggests that there should be a general holiday and day of rejoicing throughout the Australian Colonies on the completion of the AngloAustralian telegraph. : , ■ r