CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 161, 8 July 1872, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

%* "We Tare desirous of affording every reasonable facility for the discussion of public subjects; Jnit it must be understood that we are in no way responsible lor tuc opinions expressed by correspondents.

To THE FDITOR OP THE NELSON ItVENISG MAIL. Fib— Tour readers may possibly ft?c4 interested to know the degree of frost >ester«lr.y morning. My self-registering Negretti thcnnonieUr fell to 25.9 deg. or 7.1 deg. below freezing poiut. On the 16th ult. it was still lower— 2s.o deg. This, however, is a very mild degree of cold compared •with that recently experienced ;it me other end of this Inland. I learn irom my deputy -ob-erver at the Southland Observatory, which is only a few miles from the sea, that snow has fallen there to the depth of 1 5 inches in five days, ( 10 inches remaining on the ground at the date of his letter) with a day maximum temperature of only 2S di g , and a night minimum o! 14 deg. — IS r'egrees below freezing. Last Saturday, enow was fulling heavily at all 9 Otago and Southland stations, with S.W. gale. I am, &c, C. Rora Mabtex, F.&T.S., Director of Meteorological Stations, Southland. July 8, 1872.

There was a very heavy storm at Graharostown last Tuesday, when two vessels made a clean breach through the wharf. A Small Rich Vein has been discovered ia the Caledonian mine. It is about three inches thick, aud is in the foot of the wall. A Fie is occurred last Weduesday in Hospital-street, Greymoutb, iv a sloreand stable belonging to Alexander Constaotine. The buildings were destroyed, aud three horses were burnt to death. The damage amounts to £700. Picton Railway. — The Express says that tbo first sod of the Picton and Blenheim Railway will bo turned in a week or two, and the ocrasion is to be .made a regular fete by Messrs. Brogden and Sons. Mr. Kaye, the smallpox patient on Sonmes Island, is, we are glad to hear rapidly getting convalascent, and will probably be permitted to return to town uext week. One of the men who were sent over with him has caught the infection, and Dr. Buitner lias been sect to the Island to attend him. — Post. '1 Alluding to the very free and easy system prevailing in the appointment, of individuals as Justices of the Peace, the Auckland Herald asks : — " Would it not save trouble, as well as ilieexpeuse of priming, if the Government were to gazette every man of twenty-one years of age a J.P." Toe first accident caused by gas occurred in Wellington last week, when a workman engaged in putting up some fittings in a new Government office tapped the main, and was overpowered by the sudden rush of gas. On being removed by his fellow-workmen and the application of restoratives he soon catno round. , A late copy of the Waihalo Times says: — It was not at allY pleasing sight to any one who has the interest of this district at heart, to see wheat shipped here from ' Canterbury, hoisted out of barges for grinding in- the Ngaruawahia mill. -.At one time some 30,000 bushels of wheat were exported from the Waikato to Auckland by the Maoris, and we trust that the last grain, except for seed purposes, has been impor ted-in to the district;. Our farmers' credit is at a stake, and we hope that they will prove themselves "good men and true."

There aye two soap factories in Auckland which turn out annually four hundred tons of sosip. At Corornaudel, tho oilier day, the Green Harp Company's scrip immediately depreciated upon their refusing to allow tho manager of the Caledonian claim to iuspecfc thu mine. An Inch-CluU'.a correspondent 'wriiiog (o an Otago paper, complains that " if the present rate of catling limber on the island be continued for five years, there will be not sufficient left to make a wooden leg.-*' The contract for the first eight miles of die Hul.t railway is signed. The cost, incluiiinp; tails and rolling stock , i* just wilhia the parliameuttiiy limit of £5000 a asile. Inakg/Uiua I?EEi'3.~The conl used in quiwiz-crusliing operations sit Imtnj-aliusi costs £12 pnr ton. Handsome relurns will bo required from t\ o reefs to cover suf;b an expenditure as this. A Wklltnotox f'.'h-jiram says that Sherrin, from Dunedin, intends prospecting from Tuhua lo Tauran^a. Hh if? the original discoverer of the Wes'land GoldfiehJp, and expects to receive Government aid from the Resident Minister for the Middle Island. Ox Saturday mornh>£, nfc eiuht o'clock, pays the Auckland Herald, " all hands on deck to "witness punishment," wsss piped on board H.M.S. Kosario, and a couple of her men receiver] three dozen each at, the jjann;way. Wo are not aware of the nature of the offences, but they must have been of a very serious nature, as Hogging in port i? extremely unusual. The Westport, Times reports that the late heavy iall of snow has rendered the track from Christ} 's to the Lyell quite impassable, ibe trees and houghs being over it. m every direciion. Mr. Thompson, the contractor for the maintenance of the rond, is busily enraged in clearing it for traffic. The road from the Landing to Christy's is also very kid from the same rea s on . Picton Railway. — It is gratifying to learn that his Honor Mr. Seymour and Mr. Barleyman are making very satisfactory progress with the negotiations for the acquisition of lands through which the line will pass. Over thirty sections are already agreed for, aud no great difficulty is anticipated with regard to the remainder. In fact we believe that the owners crenerally have met his Honor in a liberal spirit, thereby recognising the value they set. upon the s'heme. — Express. Dk. Hector is preparing for transmission to Germany an Fxeeediugly interesting collection of Maori curiosities, comprising some splendid specimens of the Apferyx of huth kinds, samples of the minprnls of the colony, a number of Maori and Chatham Islands store implements, pomp Ma^ri ekulle, casts of the Hi Tiki (Maori God or amulei), casts of mon ejrgs (inf')nding ono of the celebrated vgz found on Mr. Fyfe's property at the Kaikoursi), a. number of rcoa bones, and specimens of kauri gum. Last week one man sued another in the Resident Magistrate's Court, Dunedin, for £10, being, as was said, for cash lent, whilst tho men were gambling in a puhlichause. At the conclusion of the c-tse, the Resi«ient Magistrate said : — "This matter requires no consideration whatever. It, is perfectly evident, that the money was lent for the purpose of gambling, and therefore the contract was illegal, and the money is not. recoverable by -law. These proceedings are, to sny the least, most, disgraceful, and most discreditable to all parties concerned, and I say that if the plaintiff lost his money it s< ryes him right, and I wish he had lost fifty times more." , Tue Government of Victoria, Fays the Australasian, do not appear to have much faith in Fiji Bonds. Oue of the missions with which Mr. Woods, Minister for Lands at Fiji, was entrusted on his visit, to Victoria, was the purchase of a small stpsmer for the Fijian Government. He desired to obtain the Pharos, and, we understand, made no difficulty about the price. He, however, was not prepared to pay cosh; the Victorian Government declined lo take anything else, and the negotiations were consequently terminated. A Vase is to be presented to his Excellency the Governor, by Mr. Brogden, , as a memento of the inauguration of railways and public works in New Zealand. The Otago Daily Times describes it as composed of silver, resting upon a stand of polished totnra, and altogether about two feet in height. The plateau of the base represents a grass and fern covered hillock. Upon one side there blooms a fine specimeu of the phormium levax, and upon another a, raup" plant (Typhis avgustifolia,) A large tree fern springs from the centre of the hillock, forming the stem of the vase, and under its wide-spreading branches a rnoa and kiwi are standing. The ovalshaped body of the vase rests on the top of the fern tree, and is decorated on two

sides with locomotives, one of the latter hearing the inscription "Lady Bowen." The body and ltd are also profusely covered with foliage, and each handle fears a lizard. Tho whole is appropriately crowned with a full length figure of a Maori chief, spear in hand, stuuding on the lid.

A Little Episode in one of the Scotch courts last week reveals a pleasant state of things in the iron trade when things there are pleasant. The widow ot Mr. George Baird, of Sitchell, a member of one of the most flourishing firms dealing in that material in the north, applied for an increase of income towards the maintenance and education of her late husband's heir. This, of course, necessitated a disclosure of the property in question, and it appeai-s that the deceased died worth £15,000 a year in land and other property — the " business" we presume — estimated at about a million, and now producing some £40,000 a year. Tbe Court awarded £3000 per annum to be applied as prayed. Tbe future inheritor of all this wealth is about eleven years old, and there remains therefore ten more during which his riches must increase by accumulation at the rate of something more than £50,000 a year, producing eventually, at compound interest, a sum, in addition to that bequeathed by his father, something very near three quarters of a million 3 The young gentleman will therefore start in life upon an income of little less than £90,000 a-year. Some idea may be formed of the profits of the iron trade — when it really is profitable — if we remember that the deceased millionaire was but one of three composing the firm, and that the firm itself — as we are told — has not, been in existence for more than fifty years. The JVeiv York Nation is responsible for the following story: — "The (American) publishers of Worcester's and of Webster's Dictionaries have recently been engaged in a curious correspondence with Mr. A. S, Solomon?, a respectable Israelite gentleman of the district of Columbia. He begins by calling the attention of the Messrs Merriam that their dictionary contains an intolerant definition of a certain word. Webster's defines the verb 'to jew' as an active verb, meaning to cheat or defraud ; to swindle;' and marks it as 'colloquial.' To this letter Messrs Merriam make answer that the case of the verb in question is one of those in which an opprobrious sense is attached to a word without any offensive sense necessarily attaching to the original word, and cites * Jesuitical ' as being in point, They have ordered the remark ( used opprobriously' to be appended to the definition. From Messrs Brewer and Tibston, whose dictionary makes the obnoxious word mean 'to cheat ' (colloquial), tbe verb 'to jew' has the authority of Shakespeare ; that the intent of their dictionary is to give the orthography, pronouociatiou, and meaning of every word used by any English author of any notoriety; and that to omit the verb complained of would be to contradict the plan of the whole work. They are, however, perfectly willing either to omit it altogether, or to condemn it as unjust.".