1 Southland correspondent writes mo (' Civis ') that he has 'just crossed the track of a mean man" whose achievements in that line beat even the Oamaru record reported in this column last week. The Southland mean man is a landed proprietor whose habit is, when he is travelling, to avoid hotels, and quarter himself upon private settlers. On one occasion, when riding away from a station at which he had been hospitably entertained, he was followed by a sheep dog, the property of his host, who a few days later wrote saying ; ' Kindly keep the animal till I can send for him.' ' You can have tho dog,' was the reply, <on paying 20s expenses.' The same mean \ man bought a hive of bees from a poor woman living near his estate. Some days passed before it suited his convenience to send for them, and in the meantime a young swarm had lef b the hive. On learning this fact the mean man demanded half his money back — and got it, too, by Btopping the amount out the price of a subsequent purchase of fruit. ' Thrift, thrift, Horatio !' This ia the way some people get rich. What it is in little repacities like these that tickles our sense of humour I don'b quite know, but certain ib is that the tricks of sordid meanneßS are generally amußing. Possibly wo chuckle with a comfortable sense of superiority to such weaknesses ; possibly, on the other hand, the fun lies in our detecting In another ignoble qualities which we carefully conceal in our" selves. I leave it to the philosophers. Any how it should be a cheok on meannoss that ib invariably excites ridioule as well as disgust. The following is an extract from a letter just received by a gentleman in Chrisbchurch (says the Press) from one of the leading Lon don stockbrokers: — "I am glad to hear that New Zealand is doing .bo well, und I trust that she will continue to progress, and refrain from borrowing moro money. The conversion of her 10-40 into 3£ was a successful operation, and I think that further economies might still be practised to reduce tho rate of inter est. The 3.J- per cent, of New Zerland stand at 98, and hor4 per cent, at 107, the 5 per cent. 