EXCESSIVE INTEREST.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9124, 7 June 1895, Page 4

EXCESSIVE INTEREST.

An Auckland Press Association telegram reports that a bankrupt named Walter Armstrong, in his statement to the Official Assignee, stated that for one of his liabilities, £543, he was paying interest at the rate of 120 per cent, per anuutn. THE UNEMPLOYED. The Dunedia Assembly of Knights of Labour have passed a resolution asserting that the action of the Government in reducing the employment of the poor men on the co-operative public works, in order to make work for the unemployed, is calculated to accentuate rather than diminish poverty, and asking the Government to reconsider the position, THE GRUESOME FIND. A correspondent of the North Otago Times Says that au old rfaori burial ground at Moeraki is being washed away by the sea, and the bones of those who have been buried there are often washed out. The skull, he says, which was reported to have been found in the stomach of a shark, should be returned to the Maoris, who will give it decent sepulture. It should never have been brought away from Moeraki, as the Maoris are very particular on the point. WAGES OF SAWMILL HANDS. The Makutuku correspondent of the Hawke's Bay Herald writes :.-—" Having lived in saw milling districts some years, I fancied I could gauge the earnings of mill hands pretty accurately till a few days ago. Speaking to an old hand who had kept account of wages for eighteen months, his averaged 3s par day. As such meu's wages are nominally 8s to 12a per day then: is room for a big error in computing the earning power of a milling district." THE TRANSATLANTIC CATTLE TrUl'E At Birkenhead recently, the captain of a steamship from Buenos Ayree was fined £22 for omitting to slaughter three oxen which had been landed in a most shocking conditiou from broken limbs, broken ribs and othsr injuries. From the evidence it transpired that over fifty cattle and nearly 100 sheep were lost overboard or died during the voyage. TESTIMONY TO NEW ZEALAND LAMB. The following appears in Madge's •• Girl's Gosaip" in the London Truth : —Fancy a fore-quarter of lamb and a large ox-tongue for seven shillings ! And delicious lamb, too. We had it from New Zealand, via Nelson's Wharf, Lambeth, and intend very often to do the same. The mutton, being three-year-old, is really better thin the home-bred, though insular prejudice is apt to deny the possibility of its being so. It keeps for a week, hung in the ordinary larder. THE AJtDGOWAN ESTATE. A Wellington Press Association message says that the preliminaries for the submission of the dispute as to the price of the Ardgowan estate, near Oamaru, to the Arbitration Court under the Land for Settlements Act, are now complete, and the decision will be binding both on the Government and on the owners, the New Zealand and Australian Land Company. Mr Justice Williams will be the presiding Judge, and an assessor, who will act with him, has yet to bs selected. The Court will sit very shortly. This is stated to be the first instance in the history of the British dominions where, by. Statute law, the Government of the day has been enabled to resume for settlement private estates for the public welfare.

VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS

Mr J. E. March. Superintendent of Vtf. lage Settlements, has been nuking good use of his Opportunities in Now South Wales and Victoria, where ha has been courteously treated by the officials. Referring to the " labour colony " at Lsong.uha, iv Victoria Mr March is reported to have been macb pleased with it as an chjvct lesson. H« consideied "colonies" of that description would be capital training grounds for met who were willing to g,> upon the land but lacked experience iv bush u-,,rk and were without means. He made full inquiries regarding the movement beini; sinned [n to establish the oil seed in dag. try, and also nou-d sericulture, which is beiug started at Eigle Point, as an industry the settlers in New Z-.-a'.aud eiig»m ia. POLITICAL INFr.IJEICvE One of the Premier's d;n</hter9 i,;. s U3 appointed teacher et ono of tho Wellington schools. The Post takes no exception to\he young lady's qualifications, but urges that political influence was brought to beat the Education Board. "Xo person of com mon sense," it says, " will be.ieve that had she arrived in Wellington a stranger, with, out influences, she would, even if l;er qu a r* fications had been much higher thuu they are, have at once becu appointed to ihe school most convenient, for her, and over the heads of many other eqiully quaiiriecf persons with per aps considerably create' poisonal claims on the Board." RETAIL SHOPS FOR FROZEN' MUTTON. At Mr D. J. Nathan's meeting at Wansja. nui groat stress was laid on the desirability of the various New Zealand freezing cotn . panics combining aud opening retail shops at Home for the distribution of our frozen mutton. At the Woodville meeting oo th. 30th ult., Mr \V. H. Nelson, of NeUoo Brothers (Limited), supported Mr Natb an ' c proposals of consolidation, but doubled the possibility of combining with the schema the retail business at Home, and instanced the fact that his firm supplied 3000 retiU firms. NEW ZEALAND SPIDERS. A geutleman (says the New Zealand Herald) has collected some seven cr eight spiders, apparently of the same variety as the katipo, except that they have a faint white line instead of the usual red mark oa the back characteristic of the katipo. The question raised is whether they are a distinct species of katipo or an accidental variety. The Natives at Mercury Bay state that some of their people had been bitten by these spiders and made seriously ill. At one particular beach they are said to be numerous. Whilo visiting" Aratapu the gentleman referred to had bsen told by the Maoris that tlu-y also had seen "a poisonous epider with raiut white marks. A SCHOOLBOY'S GRIEVANCE. Young New Zealand evidently believes ia the power of the Press. The othor day a youngtfer to U3 about tho charge he was made to pay for admission to a football match, and pathetically remarked that he was not " made of sixpences." We hear that a little girl at ono of the suburban schools the other day when asked what were the chief results of the Revolution, created some surprise by putting "the freedom of the Press first aud foremost. It turned out that her father was "not unconnected," as the reporters say, with one of the local papers, which perhaps accounts for the importance she not unnaturally attached to the subject. Now we have before ua the following letter in a good round schoolboy hand, signed " Johnie " (sic), aud unmistakably genuine :—" Sir, —I do not think it is tha'j boys should be kept in at school till after 4 o'clock to work up for the coining examination and then have extra home work. I am sorry to say euch is the case at tho East Chiistchurch school in souif of the classes. Hoping others will see into this matter, I am, etc., Joiinie."