Items.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XIX, Issue 5952, 23 May 1894, Page 3

Items.

A correspondent of the Times, while examining some MSS. in the French National archives, has discovered a very curious memorandum drawn up by the notorious privateer, Paul Jones. From this it would appear that when Lord Selkirk's plate was seized by his orders, the detachment of pirates who were sent to take lit were instructed by their redoubtable captain "politely to ask for the family plate, to stay only a few minutes, to take what was given them without demanding anything more, and to return immediately afterwaids without proceeding to any search." According to Paul Jones, Lady Selkirk was so pleased that she wanted to come down to the beach to ask him to stay and dine with her. One wonders whether Lady Selkirk thought that a little delay might give some English frigate a chance of coming to the rescue of the plate. It is a curious thing that it was, as a matter of fact, restored in 1784.

The St. Petersburg papers announce that a regular steamship line is new being established between England and West Siberia, on the initiation of the wellknown shipowners, Vassiti Kudrascheff, of Yekaterinburg, and Gabriel Griasoff, of Barnaul. Obdorsk, on the river Ob, is to become the chief collecting and exporting entrepot. The chief European agent of the new enterprise is Mr Consul C. Sendberg, of Moss," in Norway, who is forming a mercantile flotilla of 20 ships for this particular traffic. M. Kudriascheff, who has passed two summers in exploiting the Altai region, says (its mineral and other wealth is well-nigh inexhaustible. He found abundant sources of iron ore (containing 80 per cent, of metal), graphite, manganese, magnificent timber for building purposes, and a superfluity of agricultural products.