it will be a responsible and unpleasant office and a small remuneration for it is reasonable. He lives in Napier now and finds it as much as he can do to make both ends meet. I have written officially about the Interpreters under the N. Land Court and am glad to see you are preparing to act in it. - it wants taking in hand badly. You telegraph me today that Purvis Russell wants to be made an Interpreter this wd. be very undesirable but not easy to refuse. If however you adopt rules such as I propose it wd. not suit him to be at the service of any one willing to pay his fee and you could scarcely make an exception in his or any other case. He is thoroughly in with the Wilson-Whitmore lot and I hear speaks as nastily as any of them of you. Whenever I see him he is gracious in the extreme and the next I hear of him is some bitterly hostile remark. They are a bad breed and not worth bothering with. I have seen something of Watt who was kind of drifting into their lot and I think he is all right. He does not like the Finance scheme but otherwise he is friendly enough. He has and is getting more and more influence here, the influence of money. We are having a moist spring so far and not much warm weather yet altho I believe the country looks beautiful. I want to get into the country and see after Roads etc. but there is a fearful lot of work to do in the office before I can get away. I must close. Always, yours very truly, J. D. Ormond