WELLINGTON ITEMS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVI, Issue 11152, 29 December 1896, Page 5

WELLINGTON ITEMS.

[Prom: Our • Correspondent.! WELLINGTON, Dec. 28. THE PIiIMMEETON TRAGEDY.

The Plimmerton horror is engaging public attention to the exclusion of everything else. Who are these two unfortunates everybody is asking, and the answers are as numerous as the answerers, and some there are who, having read the article on the demoralisation wrought by the daily Press and the consequent necessity for prohibiting all daily newspapers—that article on which you commented the other day in your leading columns—are inveighing against the gruesome publicity given to this awful thing. Reasonable men, however, insist that the publicity may have the beneficial result of the discovery of the identity of these poor wretches. “ Never mind who we are,” is all that they wanted the world to know about them two years ago when they walked into that bush to take their lives, but they left certain evidence which, nevertheless, is eloquent. For example, a large number of small bottles were found within reach, such as are. generally used for chloi’odyne, all empty, of course. It looks as if they had tried poison, but, finding it slow, fell back on the revolvers. Then, as to the relations between the pair, the usual theories are, of course, afloat, but the facts are puzzling. The facts are testified to by the teeth. His is the mouth of a decrepit old creature, but hers is the mouth of a young woman. , INTERCOLONIAL RECIPROCITY. With regard to the proposed Reciprocity Conference, Mr Seddon is prepared to accept Hobart as the locality if the majority agree. RAILWAYS AND CUSTOMS. Mr Seddon, who is "running the whole show” just at present, has not anything more serious to attend to for the moment than the work of replying to telegrams of congratulation proper to the season. The railways and customs are giving very practical and substantial evidences of congratulation at the present moment. The former’s revenue for the first nine months of the year is in a glorious upward condition. If the betterment does not exceed <£Bo,ooo I shall be astonished. The Customs Department has the same tale to tell, and there will bo a tidy sum to the good there as well. The two great indicators of our system are pointing to a rising prospect. These are corroborated by some very hopeful letters received in town from London, in which a solid and permanent four shillings are anticipated for wheat and good firm prices for wool and increased prices for butter and cheese. Meat is the drawback, and so greatly as to point to the imperative necessity for regulation by legislation at this end. That, I am persuaded, will be one of the statutes of nest session.