PROVINCIAL AND GENERAL.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 242, 19 September 1872, Page 8

PROVINCIAL AND GENERAL.

In the list of coastwise imports at Nelson, seventeen tons of J*awau shells are mentioned as having been entered at the Custom*, brought from .Kaikoura in the schooner Pearl. As many readers may wonder what kind of shells these are, and for what purpose they are intended, It may interest them to learn that they bring a high price in the home market — from £90 to £100 a ton— being used for inlaying mother-of-pearl, papier«-mache, and working up into fancy goods of various descriptions, Roughly computed, there are 9000 shells to the ton, which will give 153,000 shells for the cargo brought by the Pearl, An epicurean prisoner in the Reef ton lock-up haa addressed to the Visiting Justice, Mr. Broad, the following letter. ; — " dear sir, please send me 1 gallon of the best rum, 31b of white sugar, 31bs of of ootmeal, 21bs of mustard for potestas, 1 pint of milk per day, 2 fresh eggs per day, as soon as I receive this, I always will pray for your worship and be allways your umble servant and sinciar frend, James Bowles a prisenor at Reefton and i promise to do any thing for your affer i have Done my time to his Bxeceiency the right Honetable sir Charles Broad Knight." The London correspondent of the Argus, writing on 12th July on the social difficulties at present existing in Britain, says: — " The demand for the shortening of the hours of labour and an increase of wages, is so general that the great middle class begins to feel it and to cry out. There are strikes on every hand, and the cost of living steadily increases. The Times estimates that over a million a month is lost to the country by these strikes. The London building trade is still disorganised. The masters met the strike by a general lock-out, and many thousands of t hands were thrown on the resources of the trades unions. All efforts at arbitratsion failed. This week there are sigus of amendment, though still disunfion among the men. The masons accepted a compromise, which makes the wages B|d an hour, and grants the nine hours, but distributes them according to the seasons; thus there are to be 12 winter weeks of 47 hours a week, and 40 spring, summer, and autumn weeks of 5£ hours, with a Saturday half-holiday all the year round. The carpenters object to this arrangementj which was made without consulting them, and still adhere to their demand, for " nine hours and 9d." Under their pressure the masons rre returning but slowly to work, although the masters promptly terminated the lock-out. The country trades are preparing to sustain, if necessary, the London men. In other departmentsfyf labour there is similar uneasiness. In one or two places even the washerwomen have struck, and the servants have threatened combination while market-gardeners have left the ripe fruit unpicked. The fact, however, most disquieting just now to average householders is the increased price .of coal, which at midsummer is higher than in the severest winters, and is almost daily advancing. This is but a small part due to the strikes ; it is attributed to the very large consumption of coal in the iron-workß, and is the more felt because people are all rushing to the coal merchant to gether in a sort of panic lest they shonld not be able to provide for winter fires.

Notwithstanding the conflict of Protestantism with the Papacy, the " religious difficulty " does not prevent every Swiss from being thoroughly educated, even in the higher branches of knowledge, if he chooses to follow them. A few men in isolated districts are ignorant, and are classed -with. idioi3. For an army of exclusive of a large reserve and a landwehr, and with every man in the country drilled, the cost is 9,999,279 francs (£399,811). The cost of education is 10,445,357 francs (£417,814). The only country in which education costs more than the army is the freest country in Europe. This is a fact which many thoughts may suggest themselves tq Englishment. — Home Paper.