The Daily Telegraph. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1884.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4160, 21 November 1884, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1884.

In the last Now .Zealand Gazette to hand notice is given that the sum of £4000 has been voted by Parliament for distribution to public libraries. The distribution will take place on the Bth February, 1885, and no claim wiU bo considered that shall not have been sent in due form and received by the Secretary for Education, Wellington, on or before the 31st January, 18S5. Every public library maintained by rates will be entitled to share in the distribution . according to its income from rates; and every public library maintained by subscriptions and voluntary contributions will be entitled to share according to its income from subscriptions and voluntary contributions, provided in either case that the income for the year has not been less than £2, and_ that admission to the library, if within a borough, is open to the public free of charge. The net proceeds of lectures, concerts, or ether entertainments on behalf of the current oxpenses of the library, will be regarded as "voluntarycontributions." A library to be entitled to a subsidy must be public in the sense of belonging to the public, and of not being under the control of an association, society, or club, whose membership is composed of a section of the community only. As a rule, a subsidy will not be given to more that one library in the same town, The income of each library may be stated either for the year ending the 31st December, 1884, or for the/year ending with that day in the year 1884 on which the annual accounts of the library were made up. The distribution will not bo in proportion to the several incomes of the libraries, but a nominal addition of £25 will be made to the amount of each income, and the vote of £4000 will be divided-in proportion to the amounts as thus augmented, but so as that no institution shall receive more than £50, and that no payment shall be made in respect of income derived from endowments or grants. from Borough or County Councils, or of moneys received for building purposes, and not simply for the current expenses of the library itself, or of moneys received as rent hire, or consideration for the use of any building or room belonging to the institution. Application to share in the distribution must be made in the form of a statutory declaration by the chairman, or secretary, or treasurer of tho institution on behalf of which it is made, and such declaration has to bo made on a prescribed form.

Our Wellington telegiam states that certain arrests have been made in that city, and it is supposed that they are not entirely unconnected with tho recent bank forgeries, Referring to those forgeries, our Christchurch namesake makes the sensible- rer mark that it is not so, much a matter foi surprise that a successful attempt has been made to pass spurious Bank notes, as that such attempts are not made oftener. Our contemporary goes on to say that the state of the note circulation of most of the Banks in the colonies i.i such as almost to suggest fraud to the criminal class. A large proportion of the notes are so defaced by dirt and decay that none but the eye of an expert can assert with authority whether any <riveil one is genuine or not, or can tell much about what is supposed to be expressed in it. It is a significant commentary on fne condition-of Bank notes generally that one of the means adopted by the' forgers whose handiwork has just beon discovered, to increase the "resemblance of the spurious note to the real one,- was to make it as greasy and dirty as possible. There are now in circulation iii Christchurch alone hundreds of filthy pieces of paper which profess to be valuable documents, but which ;iiO decent person would touch with a pitchfork if they were nofbanlc notes. There is no good reason why such a state .of things should exist. The profits made by the banks in theso colonies are sufficiently large- to justify tho authorities expending a little more on the* promissory ''notes 'which they issue instead of the coin of the realm. Indeed, we are inclined to think that the increased circulation ; which would certainly j follow the adoption of a system of issuing: < aohe but cleari ; notes—would morevthan i counterbalance the necessary outlay. There < is also another aspect' 6f~ this rbimk note : mestion, and that is the sanitary- one. Tho i nterohange of dirty notes miist undoubtedly i jOntribnto to the spread of all kinds; of i lisease.'-Whenit iflibornoiii mind that a \ lank note may pass through the hands— s md other receptacles— f>f all-sorts and.con- r litions of men, and that unlike a coin it r :annot be cleansed, tho risks people daily -y Tin. arc apparent. Tho biography of a lank note in New Zealand would furnish ome curious reading. In fact one shudders it tho possibilities Miggested by the baro t' dea. We suspect the police could make |1 ome strange'disclosures as to tho hiding " laces of some of the notes that have been d

recovered from thieves and others. Nor are the criminal classes tho only people who select queer places to keep their notes in. We remember an old Maori chief in Wei-

lington district v/ho used to keep most of hia money-in notes about his remarkably, odorous person, under the impression that it was safer there than in the Bank!"