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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 260, 2 November 1868, Page 2

The New York Tribune, speaking of the system pursued in Australia and New .Zealand of leasing large tracts of country as sheepruns, says : — This has prevented the establishment of such settlements as have developed our own Western States. It is difficult -to decide upon the value of a country for agriculture, and for sustaining n large population, where special pursuits become monopolies. Nothing but the small- farm system, and in a free country, will develop all the latent qualities in the soil. . . . An occupation requiring so little skill and intellect as the care of sheep in a pastoral country, and where it is unsupported by a variety of other pursuits, never can establish prosperity; for when -straitened times come the only remedy is to increase the flocks. But though this may bring relief to a few who out of the vastness of their possessions save something, to the many only disaster will follow. The sheep business in Australia has reached this point — reached it because there is no home market for wool to furnish employment when wide-spread casualties in other interests ensue, and to furnish a balance for all the various industries; and now, being overdone, the sheep are slaughtered for their pelts and tallow. A loquacious author, after babbling for some time about his piece to Sheridan, said, * Sir, I. fear I have been intruding on your atten tioD.'"— 'Not at all, I assure you,' replied Sheridan, 'I was thinking of something else. A contemporary says the famous saying of Shakspeare, that * There is a divinity that shapes our ends,' is exemplified in the employment of thousands of young girls who are making gentlemen's boots. Jeffrey once said to Mrs Hamilton, author of ' The Cottagers of Glenburnie,' that there was no objection to the blue stocking provided the petticoat came low .enough down. Bishop Hall quaintly remarks that for <every bad there might be a worse; and when-, man breaks his leg, let him be 6-<»uJ_ ftU that it was not his neck.