TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 12, 23 March 1867, Page 2

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

T. S.—The day has gone by when FI ock owners gave orders on their agents in payment to their shepherds with any such object as that you refer to. No doubt now as formerly some shepherds like some sailors, and from the same causes, foolishly drink away all their wages, but they would do this whether they were paid by orders or in “ current coin of the realm.” We do not think, as we have said before that orders are a legal tender, but the shepherd contracts to be paid in this way. There are two aides to the question. As storekeepers, as well as publicans, will willingly cash their orders, this circumstance may induce the shepherd to spend on clothes, what, if he received his wages in cash, he might expend in grog. Surplice. —The surplice controversy has not yet died out in England. It first originated at Exeter when the late Thomas Hood wrote the following lines on the subject:— A very pretty public stir Is making down at Exeter About the surplice fashion ; And many bitter words and rude Are interchanged about the feud And much unchristian passion ; For one I neither know nor care, Whether a parson ought to wear A black dress or a white dress— Plagued with a trouble of my own, A wife who preaches in her gown, And lectures in her night dress.

S. P.—The tale we published occupied much more of our available space than we anticipated; but we know that short tales will prove interesting to many of our gentle readers. In an early number we .shall publish a very exciting German Legend translated expressly by a friend of the Editor.

E. B.—We have not seen, and therefore have not read, the letter you refer to. From what we can gather of its contents we conclude that the writer in the endeavor to display his own knowledge exposes in a lamentable manner his ignorance. The term furnished the title of a leading article of ours when probably our censor had not dispensed with his frock and trousers.