"STOCK" AND "STOCK"

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1058, 11 July 1883, Page 3

"STOCK" AND "STOCK"

The Christchurch correspondent of the Auckland Herald writes Really good stories are always scarce, but I heard of one the other day that happened to be neither as old as Joe Miller nor as dull as a comic song. A month or two ago, when some of our Australian cousins were debating the advisability of having their stock inscribed in London, a correspondent wrote to the editor of a newspaper which boasts a wide circulation in New Zealand, to ask him whether he knew of any Act in force

••n this Colony riu.fh< rising the inscription of stock. Tho editor. notion oil' Mew -Zealand stuck scema in have been limited to the horned,an.i hoofed variety, referred the question In bin agricultural sub editor. Tho latter, equally at sea, scrafcbed'iiis head,looked prol’oiuid, and finally returned the query, marked thus : “ Don’t know oil any Colonial Act, but think that there ia an old provincial Branding Ordinance still in force here and this reply was actually printed. Whether the correspondent took it in good faith or not, I have yet to learn ; but A, know dibit.the editor has had ‘Cause to sympathise with the feelings of the farmer who bought Miss Edgeworth’ treatise on “ Irish Bulls,” under tho impres?ou that it contained information valuable to a grazier. -Your readers may remember that when Mr Ruskin close to entitle one of his -controversial Church pamphlets 11 A treatise on the Construction Q f Sheepfolds,” he unintentionally caused several flockowners to invest their money therein ; also, that a copy of the theological work, tl M’Ewen on the Types,” was once purchased by a journeyman printer at an auction sale,' much to the buyer’s disadointment ; but the “ Inscription of Stock ” story vies, I. think, with any, of these, and for its authenticity I can vouch*