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Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 53, 31 August 1872, Page 2

In another column will be found an ;ulvertinemeut announcing that Mr E. W. Cotch is prepared to give Is per lb. for all well cured tobacco leal —for better samples a higher price. This announcement is worthy the afcf eutiun of our settlers. Tiie cjuautity of Maori tubacco brought into the townships is abundaut evidence that the fragrant weed can be grown successfully in this district. The price ottered, we venture to think would make tobacco growing as remunerative as any other crop. With regard to the female Scandinavian immigrants settled in the Wairarapa district, the Masterton correspondent of tiie Wellington Independent writes : —"-There, is a homely thrift and industry about these Scandinavian women that reminds one of what our great-grandmothers were in merry England. These women buy the raw wool, which they wash clean. They collect a plant that grows by the small creeks, and make from it a beautiful brown (.lye, which is readily imparted to the wool. The wool is then put through the usual carding and spinning process, and stockings and other useful household articles are knitted in spare time/' With reference to immigration agents a Welliugton contemporary says :—A Government return laid before tho ituuse on the 26 th is a curiosity in its way. It is supposed to give the name iof all emigration agents who have been sent from this colony, and who have been appointed in other countries. Dut, of course, it does nothing of the kind. 121) agents have been appointed, and the names of only eight are given. Under the head of "To what countries they are appointed, - ' we are informed, for the first time, that Christiana, Hamburg, and Copenhagen are countries, not cities ; and from this and

the fact that in. one place " Scotland" is named as a country, and in another the " United Kingdom," we are led to believe that the clerk wlio drew out the return lias but lm;y ideas of geography. Among the names of the agents, figures that of Mr Charles Hooking Carter, who imortalised himself by the hopeless blunders he made over such public matters as he lias been engaged in. But he is lucky in the possession of a friend at Court, and he now enjoys the beuelit of the fact at the rate of £300 a year and travelling expenses. The cost of this army of 129 agents, we can only vaguely estimate from the return, but six of them are receiving about .£1864 per annum, besides £.'-{2O for passages to London, an indefinite sum for tiavelling expenses, and another indefinite sum for passages to the colony r.gain. With three other agents, contracts to the value of £7000 have been entered into. But with regard to the small balance of I'2o agents no information is vouchsafe'. All this our readers will remember, is over and above the salary of the Agent-General and the cost of his office. Then there is a detachment of agents throughout this colony, of which the return makes no mention ; and yet we presume they receive some emoluments. It thus appears, so far as the cloud thrown over the matter will enable us to aseei tain, that the colony is incurring a regular cost of certainly not less than £5000 a year, presumably for immigration, and is in fact supporting Ministers' friends to that tune, but all the while is receiving nothing in return. What the cost of the immigrants is above this £91)00 a year, we can only guess. Before they leave London, it cannot be less than £2 a head, ami may be more than double that sum. By the time they arrive here they must be costly indeed. Should 2000 immigrants arrive within the next twelve months, we may safely conclude that they will cost the colony between £25,000 and £■'> ),000. Truly Ministers are not only bungling the immigration scheme, but the taxpayers will have to pay for the bungle pretty heavily. The other day in Paris a young corature of sixteen had just ielt the vestry at the close of her marriage with an old man over seventy, when the latter was suddenly seized with an apoplectic fit, and fell do wn dead by the side of his terror-stricken bride. The carriage in "waiting carried his corpse to the bridal home he had furnished in the most extravagant style. This doting old man, who dreamt that a union could be happy between wrinkled old age and early youth, left tho widow a dowry of 400,000 francs on her bridal day.