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Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 194, 4 December 1876, Page 2

Wb have often heard of ingenious devices for "raising the wind," but the following must be allotted the palm for originality and rascality. From an exchange we learn that the English editor of the Rajpootana News, an Indian paper, being in financial difficulties, hit upon the expedient of extracting himself therefrom by pledging his daughter for a certain sum. The annexed is the bond fide docu-

ment-relating to the.transaction :—"No. ' E., 76*6^487^—1 acknowledge to have received as a loan frpin Mr. John Mason, of Kurar, the sum .:pf rupees one hundred, for the security of which I leave with him my daughter Alice Verner ; upon pay-" ment of the above-mentioned sum, he, the said John Mason, will return my daughter to me.—Signed at Kurar on the seventh day of May, 1875. (Sd.) Charles H. Verner, Father; (Sd.) Bridget Verner, Mother." The editor of a paper pawning his daughter " A±icb" for the sum of one hundred rupees —not quite ten pounds. Such a monster is a disgrace to humanity ; but what must be thought of the mother of the unfortunate victim who coolly appended her signature to a document which consigned her offspring to a life of infamy ? Were it not on the score of morality, no doubt any release from ! the clutches of such mercenary wretches : were a happy change. And this was one of " the leaders of public opinion ;" but woe to a community which would recognise such a code of ethics, or countenance such a monster to fill a public position.