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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 41, 17 February 1879, Page 2

The G. Ii Argn » humorously remarks :— The Cobden Bridge is another of those works in tbis district which the public authorities appear to treat as a plaything. If the number of official lies that have been told, about this work could be measured by avoirdupois, the cables constructed for it would snap like a corrot— or rather like the anchor plate of the Brunner Bridge— if they had to sustain their weight. First it was to be a dray bridge, certain— cost, £10,000; money voted, and so forth; then it was to be only a foot bridge, at less than half the price, to be erected forthwith, and finished in no time; then it was to be constructed so that it could be converted into a dray bridge if necessary; and finally it was to be a foot and horse bridge. As yet there is no evidence of any intention to construct a bridge of any kind, except a few lengths of wire cable and a chain or two of embankment. The man William Brown, alias Farness, who was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment on three separate charges, was evidently a practised burglar. Some time since he came from Sydney, where he had belonged to a gang known as "The Forty Thieves." The police have ascertained that he had made arrangement here for housebreaking on an extensive scale. Several others, whose names they have not been able to discover, were to act as his accomplices . The particular houses bad been " spotted," and arrangements had been completed for disposing of the broken gold, &o. The whole of the evidence against Brown was circumstantial, yet so well had the case been got up there was not a link wanting.— Chronicle. During the last week or two, says the Wellington Evening Poat, some excitement has been created in mercantile circles by a story going the rounds that five or six houses of business were in difficulties and would be compelled to meet their creditors ; and so ignorant of consequences were some of the wretched scandal mongers who started the story, that they specified the names of the firms. We heard the rumour, and made very strict enquiry into the facts, and discovered that the story was a base and wicked scandal regarding the firms named, that not only were the houses perfectly solvent, but the trade with tbem was in every way satisfactory ; and that the only thing that could have warranted the statement that the firms were " in difficulties," was the fact, that in consequence of the tightening up of the money market, they had to call iu some of their advances and decline renewing bills— a very proper and thorough businesslike proceeding in the face of the action of the various banking institutions of the Colony in practically stopping for the present much of discount and open credit accomodation. While we think that the banks, as his Honor the Chief Justice said yesterday in Court, are probably the best judges of their own business, we think that they are pursuing a most suicidal policy, one calculated to injure not only themselves but their customers. We have no hesitation in saying that at no period of its career was Wellington ever more prosperous than it is at present. Wholesale merchants are full of orders, retail traders are fairly busy; while the manufacturing and artizan hardly know which way to turn themselves in consequence of the large amount of work waiting to be done ; yet the banks are " readjusting " their accounts with a remarkable celerity. Such a proceeding is usually the outcome of stngnation of trade and general depression, but this is very far from the case with our community, and it ia to be hoped that now the money market in London has resumed its buoyancy, bankers will remember that serious responsibilities lie with thero, and that it is when their customers are somewhat pinched in their finances that their assistance is most valuable. As for the wretched creatures that gossip about the town and attempt to destroy their fellow citizens' credit (happily, in the cases we have referred to— too firm to be disturbed) no words are too strong to characterise their contemptible conduct, and we trust that the report we have heard that a signal example is about to be made of some is correct, and will be made to feel, through that sensitive organ the pocket, tbe folly and disgraceful conduct they have been guilty of. • There was a singular double wedding at Marysville, Ind., an old couple of 80 and 81 years joiuing their fortunes, and the old bride's grandson again marrying the wife from whom he had been divorced. In a country churchyard there is the following epitaph :— « Here lies the body of James Robinson and Ruth his wife ;" and underneath this equivocal text, " Their warfare is accomplished,"