MONETARY AND COMMERCIAL

Temuka Leader, Issue 2399, 15 September 1892, Page 3

MONETARY AND COMMERCIAL

London, September 10

British wheat is suffering from rust, and is not expected to yield more than 85 per cent, of the estimate. Sept. 11.

Silver, 3s 23-l Gd. Tallow, mutton medium, 25s ; ditto, beef, 23s 6d. The English wheat market is depressed, the Continettal dull, and the American declining. Suet. 12.

The attempt to establish an export trade of beef from the Argentine has proved a failure. The cargo of wheat ex Okeia from Lyttelton was sold at 265. A heavy run has taken place on the Birkbeck Bank, Southampton buildings, Chancery Lane, owing to the failure of the companies with which Mr Jabez S. Balfour is connected. The officials of the bank declare that there are no grounds for suspecting its stability, and are prepared to meet any emergency. For the purpose of accommodating customers the bank will remain open until midnight. The Union Bank of London has guaranteed the advance of £1,000,000 if necessary. Washington, Sept. 11. The American crops will be five points below the average of the last decade. Melbourne, Sept. 13.

Sir Benjamin Benjamin has becom bankrupt. Liabilities £52,000; assets £30,000. The insolvency is caused by his connection with the Imperial Banking Company of which he was char man

Cholera and Heavy Rains.—By some theorists China was credited with the dissemination of the influenza plague, which did seem to travel from the Flowery Land into Eussia soon after the great Yellow River broke from its banks, inundating a vast tract of country and drowning hundreds of villages. Whether by mere coincidence of time or otherwise, the pest came after the flood, and it was immediately prophesied that cholera would follow upon the pest. Now, it happens that most of the plagues that ravaged England in the fourteenth century (and there were at least seven or eight distinctive visitations, including the terror called the " Black Death ") were preceded by heavy rains and floods pouring upon land which was not drained as it is now, and it further happens that the Chinese annals of that period record wide and destructive inundations, followed by pestilence. This seems to countenance the view of the theorists aforesaid. Before the Black Death appeared in England there was a fall of rain that lasted for months almost without intermission —so say the historians. News.

American Law. —A correspondent sends " Civis " the following particulars of a case which will doubtless be read with interest. " Our teetotal friends will doubtless derive comfort from a perusal of the report of the case of 0' Neil v. the State of Vermont, which was finally decided on appeal in the Supreme Court of the United States on April 4, 1892. O'Neil, a storekeeper in Vermont, was charged in the year 1882 with having " at divers times " sold intoxicating liquor contrary to the Vermont Liquor Law. In the County Court he was convicted of no less than 457 separate offences under the above charge, and was accordingly sentenced to pay the trifling fine of 961,296d01., or in default to 28,846 days imprisonment with hard labour. On appeal to the State Court, however, the offences proved against O'Neil were reduced in number to 307, and the penalty was accordingly lowered to the infinitesimal one of 663,872d01., or 19,911 days imprisonment (with hard labour as before). In other words, in place of having to pay a fine of about £19,000 or going to gaol for some 79 years he had merely to find £13,000 or " take it out " to the tune of 57 years i'hard." Even this mitigated sentence, however, did not meet the views of the hardened offender, and he appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. After a few years delay judgment was delivered by that, august tribunal on the above date. In the result the appeal was dismissed and the sentence was confirmed, the Court holding that the appellant could not at that late stage object to a " want of fulness" in the original complaint, and that the question whether th© punishment meted out was " cruel and unusual" was not properly raised in the case on appeal (although it had been decided in the Court below). When we contrast such proceedings with our puny efforts in the direction of Prohibition, we feel the truth of the dictum of our Judge Richmond that " the cause of temperance, holy though it be, cannot be advanced by disregard of the still more sacred claims of justice." " The best medicine known is Sander and Sons' Eucalypti Extract. Test its eminent powerful effects in coughs, colds, influenza; the relief is instantaneous. In serious cases, and accidents of all kinds, be they wounds, burns, scalding, bruises, sprains, it is the safest remedy—no swelling —no inflammation. Like surprising effects produced in croup, diphtheria, bronchitis inflammation of lungs, swelling, &c, diarrhoea, dysentery, diseases of the kidneys and urinary organs, In use at hospital and medical clinics all over the globe ; patronised by His Majesty the King of Italy; crowned with medal and diploma it International Exhibition, Amsterdam. Trust in this approved article, and reject all other a