Correspondence.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 818, 16 January 1868, Page 2

Correspondence.

We hold ourselves in no way responsible for the sentiments or opinions of our Correspondents. We only stipulate for brevity and propriety of language. With these limitations, under the head of Correspondence, we offer a clear stage, without favour, to all parties. A CAUTION. TO THE EDITOR OF THE WANGANUI CHRONICLE. Rangitikei, January 13, 1868. Sir, —In our usually quiet district a fellow, who has evidently nothing better to do, has taken the liberty of stopping females who have been jiurchasing at one of the stores, and compelling them to show the articles they have purchased. And Jam informed that on Saturday evening, a native woman accompanied by her husband, Hare Reweti, was quietly walking home, when she was stopped by this person and ordered to show what she had bought. Upon her refusing he took her by the throat and threw her down violently, causing the blood to run from her mouth, and removing her dress searched her in a very indecent manner, and on finding only a bar of soap, which the woman was carrying in the bosom of her dress, he let her go. I hope this may not have been the case, but it is currently reported and believed, and therefore should be known, more especially as there being no native magistrate here, the woman, if she has been ill-treated, cannot obtain immediate justice, aud others m-iy be subject to the same indignity. I am, &c., Veritas. PROVINCIALISM AND EQUIVALENTS. TO THE EDITOR OF THE WANGANUI CHRONICLE January 13, 186 S. Sir,- Will you again do Jme the favour to allow me to direct a letter to the Editor of the Times through the Chronicle ? It is through no discourtesy to the Times that I do not send my letters direct to that paper, but because I feel more at home in the columns of the Chronicle, and so I should in the columns of the Evening Herald, on any subject that affects, however remotely, the great question of provincialism, and this Town Board discussion is nothing more than a cloud of dust raised by the Editor of the Times and and a few coadjutors, to smother facts and figures with the futile view of favouring provinces. Raise cabal and clamour and something in the “chapter of accidents” may turn up in our favour, for worse than we are we cannot be—such is the object of the Times.

I am opposed to provinces as at present constituted, as I consider one foreign government enough, and provincial government is nearly equally as foreign as a general government when you speak of outlying districts. Neither government has or can have a special interest in the welfare of distant settlements, so if people want to be locally well governed they must govern themselves with or without pecuniary assistance from the Geneial Government. For assuredly provinces will not assist them in either case except to expend the money inappropriately and extravagantly. Holding these views and considering the opposite views advocated by the Editor of the Times, l think it better not to write through that paper if I can help it, as in the course of discussion I may be obliged to use strong adjectives in opposition to the Editor, and as a man does not like to be told hard things in his own house, so I suppose the Editor of a newspaper does not much fancy being told disagreeable facts before his friends. Itls contrary to my wish to enter upon the discussion of any public question, and it is only where my name has been pointedly and publicly mentioned that I have interfered or intend interfering. I am, &c., Thomas Kells. TO THE EDITOR OF THE WANGANUI TIMES. your leading article of the'9th inst. you say that “I asserted on unwarrantable reports that yog were the cause of getting certain equivalents stopped that the town had hitherto received, and that those reports were industri- • ously circulated for the sole purpose of divert-

ing attention from the £7O odd, of which Mr Taylor could get no satisfactory account.” I carrie to the conclusion that you were the means of stopping certain equivalents, not on vague reports circulated, but from several leading articles and letters in the Times publicly circulated, iu which yon and your coadjutor accuse and then clumsily excuse yourselves of the notorious fact, by vehemently calling it degradation of any body that would take these equivalents. I will not “observe dates,” although your papers with the articles arid letters alluded to are lying on the table before me,< because I consider it matters little to me or to; anybody else as to whether an injury was done me yesterday or the day before, if the result is the same in either case. Degradation forsooth ! for taking customary, legal, and just equivalents.

When will the Wanganui people get an equivalent to the plunder effected in these districts from 1852 to 1860? Those were the palmy days of provincialism ! The land fund was in full swing—“observe dates.” In talking politics at all I rather like to refer to those times, tor the contemplation, although serious, is not unmingled with amusement to me. just as 1 am amused by the Times and his coadjutor’s attempt to intimidate the Wanganui people into acquiescence by calling out “surreptitious equivalents.” Does the Times think the Wanganui people are fools or cowards to he blinded or frightened by mawkish sentimentality of this sort ?

With respect to the £7O, 1 only know that the equivalent to it is stopped ; and that Mr Taylor, one of the auditors, told me some time before the public meeting was held, at which the present auditors were appointed, that the Board’s accounts were correct and that he had signed the audit sheet, remarking at the same time that the hooks were not kept according to the form that he should wish. Of course, I felt perfectly satisfied, relying on the accuracy of a gentleman who had been fifteen years manager of the Bank of Agra, and once head of the largest firm in Melbourne. I hope both concerns have done well during my friend’s management ? I suppose it is needless to ask the question. When the Editor of the Times speaks of the “auditors being hounded down by the friends and relations of the Town Board,” I hope he does not allude to me, as I have not spoken a word on the question, except where the subject was introduced in private conversation and then I only spoke to keep myself from being thought a dumb man, and I should not have written on the equivalents had not the Editor of the Times pointedly and wantonly mentioned my name in connection with the subject. When two of the auditors were found incompetent for the duties they undertook, I considered it but right to appoint two competent and impartial men to examine and report on the Board’s accounts, and till those gentlemen give in their report I should consider it unbecoming to interfere in the matter, hence I only mention the equivalents in my letter, as the equivalents merely reduce the Board’s receipts by £123 and establish a piinciple, nothing more. I have little doubt the next move will be raising an artificial row to stop the equivalents altogether on some pretext or other, and there will be men got to do the dirty work. I am, &c., Thomas Kells.

The protectionist millenium ought to be very near in Victoria, where, according to the Argus tbe exports of last year exceeded the imports. The people of Nelson are so sure that the Duke of Edinburgh will pay a visit to a province named after England’s greatest naval hero, that they propose postponing their annual race meeting till liis arrival. Since the recent not in Melbourne, when the poor lad Cross was shot, there lias been exhibited much animosity to parties displaying flags, the significance of which are unknown. The national flag of the Chinese is a triangular piece of bunting, but on this being hoisted recently some ignoramuses without more ado hauled it down.

A sample of tobacco grown in Canterbury lias been submitted to Dr. Hector for analysis. The examination was conducted for the purpose of ascertaining the quantity of nicotina contained in the Canterbury grown tobacco as compared with negrohead. After certain preliminary processes to get rid of albumen, and probably casein, the nicotina was precipitated by tasnic acid. The result shows that, taking the richness of negrohead tobacco in nicotina to be 100, that in the Canterbury tobacco will be represented by 18. The Westport Times of January Ist, states :—“ The unhappy woman known as Nancy Dawson, whose name figured so prominently a few months ago in connection with a terrible and nearly successful attempt at self-destruction, completed her fatal purpose last night. Mr Emanuel, passing the cottage which she inhabited, opposite the Camp, about nine o’clock last evening, was induced by some sounds of suffering which he heard to enter it, and on doing so found her a corpse, with her head nearly severed from her body, and the coverings of the bed on which she was lying one pool of blood. The police were called in, and Dr, Cotterell was quickly in attendance, but life was found to be quite extinct. The instrument with which she effected the deed of self-destruction is believed to have been a small dessert knife, which was found lying near her.