COMMERCIAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 116, 16 July 1875, Page 5

COMMERCIAL.

.Me. A. Mebceb reports for the week ending July 14th, retail prices only : — Fresh butter, 2s 2d to 2s 4d per lb.j powdered and salt butter, Is lOd. The supply of fresh butter still continues scarce, and not near enough to supply the market ; there is plenty of salt butter, and selling well. Cheese, best quality, scarce, 1b 2d per lb ; side bacon, Is 3d ; rolled bacon, Is 2d ; beef ham, lOd ; Colonial ham, - 1b 4d ; English ham, Is 8d to Is 9d ; eggs plentiful, retailing Is 9d to 2s per dozen. Mr. Seeenb reports for the week ending July 14th : — There is plenty of woi-k going at present, but men cannot get at it ; these busters break them sadly. The exact position of the market at present is this : work is offering in all directions in the country districts, but men suited for it are decidedly scarce. A genuine ploughman afloat just now would be a phenomenon. The opening season looks bright for the harvesting classes. Female servants are atill mistresses of the situation. The poor souls with families who, against all advice, will insist upon staying in Dunedin, are badly off. It is a great mistake so many trusting to town for a living. Shopmen and clerks are wakening up a bit. Wages : — Carpenters, 10$, 12s, and 13s per day ; bakers 40s, 455. and 60s per week ; hotel and stable people from 20a to 60s per week ; female servants from £26 to £52 ; useful boys and girls, 6s to 10s per week ; ploughmen and sheperds, £60 to £70 ; couples from £65 to £130 ; clerks and storehands, 30s to 50s per week ; dairyhands, 15s to 20s per week. Me. Heney Deivee, an behalf of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, reports as follows for the week ending July 14 :— Fat Cattle. — A fair supply of 160 head was yarded at the weekly •ale, and although the quality for the most part was very ordinary, the whole were taken by the trade at fully last week's quotations, any really prime pens commanding a slight advance. Beit bullocks brought up to £14 ; ditto cows, £12 12s. We quote best quality at 32g to 33s per 1001 b ; ordinary, 25a to 275. At the yards we sold 40 head on account of Messrs M'Donald, M'Laren, and others, and have placed 70 head privately. Fat Calves. — Only a few were penned, which sold at extreme rates — say up to 65s for prime vealers. Fat Sheep. — The very large supply of 2,800 was penned, consisting principally of good quality cross-breds. Only about half were sold, at prices ranging from 15s 6d to 19s each, a few pure-bred heavy weights bringing 24s each. At the yards we sold, on account of Messrs. James Logan, of G-reendalo Station, and others, 4UO at from, 17s 6d, and ha;o placed 500 for forward delivery. Prime cross-breds for immediate delivery may be quoted at 4d per lb ; merinos, at 3d. Store Cattle. — With the exception of a few odd lots which we have placed privately, we have no important transactions to note. A fair demand still exists for grown bullocks and cows, at from £5 10s to £7 for former, and .£4 to £5 for latter ; mixed herds, £2 10a to £4i, according to sexes and condition. Sheep Skins. — Our weekly sale last Thursday was well attended by buyers, and every lot was actively competed for, and brought advanced rates. Butchers' green crosa-breds sold at from 4s lid to 5s 9d each; merinos, 3s 8d ; dry skins, cross-breds, 3s Id to 4s ; merinos, 2s Id to 2s 6d ; double fleece, 7s 4d each ; pelts, Is 4d each ; lambs, 2s 2d. Hides. — We offered some good slaughterers' green, which brought 25s 9d to 27s each ; inferior condition, wet salted, 17s to 18s 9d each. To-morrow, at 2 o'clock, we shall offer a large quantity of very superior lots. Tallow. — Dull ; none offered out of shipping [condition. There are few buyers. Grain. — We quote no alteration in wheat. Superior milling, 4s 6d j middling to good, 4s to 4s 3d ; fowls' wheat, 3s lOd. Oats are dull of sale ; a few lots, ex coasters, have changed hands for shipment under current rates, to save storage. Present rates in store : 2s 8d to 2s 9d, feed ;2s lOd to 2s lid, fine milling. Barley : Very I little coming to hand for sale Malting, 5s to 5s 6d ; very superior, up to 6s ; milling, 4s to 4s 4d.

We noticed last week a dispute between M. Veuillot, of the ' TJuivers,' and M. de Villemessant, of the ' Figaro.' M. de Villemessant boasted that he had 4,200 priests a subscribers to his paper. M. Veuillot stated that, considering the nature and moral tone for the ' Figaro,' that was " more shame for 'em ; " whereupon M. de Villemassant thought fit to invite the archbishops and bishops of France to pronounce a judgment on his paper. The first of them to answer his appeal was the Bishop of Angiers, who gave it as his opinion that the ' Figaro ' was a very bad paper indeed, and pointed out in a letter to M. de Villemessant that the novel he was publishing as a f euillefcon was utterly abominable and unfit for the amusement of any but very depraved persona This was a stinging blow to the ' Figaro.' M. de Villemessant, who had hoped to confuse his enemy, has only brought a wasp's nest about his own ears, Avhich he certainly richly deserves. " I do not mean," says the bishop, " that newspapers need turn their columns into a collection of homilies and sermons, but I certainly think that they ought to keep themselves free from matter which no honest man can read without blushing, and the more especially ought this to be the case in a paper which boasts of 4,000 ecclesiastical subscribers. In the very number which you sent me, doubtless a specimen copy, I am bound to state that the novel published on the second page is an abominable tissue of indecent events, put together so grossly that it strikos me the police ought to have something to say on the subject." Ths bishop accompanies his letter to M. de Villemessant by one to his clergy, begging of them to cease receiving the ' Figaro,' if they have ever done so. The London ' Standard,' in an article on the subject, highly approves the bishop's letter, and declares that the ' would not be tolerated in England.