COMMERCIAL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7449, 1 October 1895, Page 3

COMMERCIAL.

Mr 0. JF. Lewis, auctioneer, reports as Under :— Canterbury potatoes 6s 3d to 6s 9d, local 3s 6d to 4s 6d ; hams (local) 6d to 6fcd, ' /Canterbury BJd to B£d ; bacon (local) 5Jd to 6M, Canterbury 7Jd to 8d ; oats 2s 7d to 2s 9d, seed do. 3s ; barley 3a ; chaff (Canterbury oat sheaf) 5s 6d to 5s 9d, local 2s 6d to 2s 9d ; onions Id to lid per lb ; maize 2s 4d to 2s 7d ; carrots 3s to 3s 6d ; wheat (good whole) 4s 3d to 4s 6d; poultry, hens Is 4d to Is 7d, roosters Is 6d to Is 9d. Canterbury potatoes have advanced 2b 6d per ton, and oat aheai chaff 2s 6d. Prices are very firm for all other Southern produce. When the American line steamer New York arrived at New York lately, a pasaepger named Nystrom, who had travelled as a man, was found in reality to be a -woman. She refused to allow the doctor to vaccijo&te hw f and it was not until compelled to bare her arm for the operation that the discovery of her sex was made. She confessed that Bhe had adopted the disguise in order to escape from her husband, who treated her with cruelty. The passengers sot up a subscription to aid her, which realised £20. The dietary at the S&lford Workhouse has from time to time been commented on more or less adversely in the local press. The minutes of the House Committee contain the following report by the Medical Officer :— ** July 2nd, 1895. The pastry of the potato pie given to the children is quite unfit for them, as it is doughy and indigestible. The children refuse to eat it in the sheds. The pastry is from three to four inches thick. Potato pie for children aged from three to five years is not proper food." The Committee recommended "that the pies be better cooked, and the crust made thinner, so that it can be properly baked." The following is an analysis of the occupations of the members of the new House of Commons, except of a few members whose elections were belated from various causes : Bankers and financiers 26, barristers (in or : ont of practice) and Q.C.s 181, brewers and distillers and wine merchants 19, builders and architects 1, civil and mining engineers 12, colliery proprietors and coal merchants 15, diplomatists and Government officials 9, estate agents and accountants 4, farmers and agriculturists 15, gentry and landowners 105, hotel proprietors 2, ironmasters and metal merchants 15, labor representatives 12, manufacturers and spinners 54, medical profetsion 11, merchants 35, newspaper proprietors and journalists 31, peers' sons and brothers 41, printers and booksellers 7, professors of universities and lecturers 10, railway contractors 2, steamship and shipowners And builders 18, solicitors (in or out of practice) 19, stock and sharebrokers 4, shopkeepers and traders 16, schoolmasters 3, professions not stated 6. It is veryremarkable that the depression from which every authority says we arc .suffering is accompanied by many signs of prosperity (says the Westminster Gazette). As Mr Samuel Smith, M.P., speaking at the annual meeting of the Liverpool Penny Savings Bank Association, recently pointed out, the amount standing to the credit of Trustee - • ggd Post Office Savings Banks at the end of , 1894 »mounted,to £132,000,000. or £9.681,000 >. more than at the end of 1893, despite the ~ " extremely depressed state of trade." This, he said, was the largest increase that had ever taken place in one year. No doubt, this is not altogether owing to the increase of thrift, but to contributory caußes— partly to the increase of the Post Office limit from £30 to £50, partly to the decrease of interest on other forms of investment, which makes the Post Office return (2J per cent.) more attractive, aad partly to the feeling of insecurity which the Liberator failure has given rise to in regard to non-Government investments. Still the increase— and it is a big fact— remains. Again, never before, we suppose, has the demand for sound investment securities been so keen. The supply altogether fails to keep pace with the demand, the magnitude of which is explicable only on the ground that capital continues to accumulate rapidly. Of course, people are still disposed to mistrust speculative securities, but this feeling has recently subsided to ft large extent, and the demand for "giltpdged " stock* has not abated.