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New Zealand Mail, Issue 47, 16 December 1871, Page 9

A remarkable absence of the commonest rudiments of education manifested itself in the Resident Magistrate's Court on Thursday, each witness in the affiliation case on being asked to sign her name to the depositions doing so by affixing her mark. The first or the second case excited no great amount of curiosity, but when the crosses svere appended a third and a fourth time the case presented the notable feature of there not being the signature of a single witness to any of the sworn testimony taken during the bearing. At the annual general meeting of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce, the chairman, Mr E. B. Cargill, drew attention to the unsatisfactory arrangements for the delivering of the mail via Suez. He said, V It did appear to him somewhat of an anomaly in these times, when such great efforts were made to secure the despatch of mails with rapidity and regularity, that there should be such a complete throwing overboard of one of their most valuable communications with the mother country, as well as with India and China. The Suez mail was brought to the West Coast of the colony, and they had the news telegraphed at once, while it was usually a week or ten days before they had the mail delivered. Sometimes the mail was sent overland ; sometimes it went on to Wellington—it was despatched by this or that vessel as accident might provide —and there was an entire ignoring of any necessity for providing for the punctual delivery of the mails. That state of things did appear discreditable to them as a community—both as mercantile men and colonists."