And the " pore irorkin 1 man," is he much heard of in the politics of the " tight little Island ? " — Well, at present, he's not much in evidence. Probably he's too hungry in the towns to be able to make his voice heard ; and in the country districts the people do not con cern themselves about such matters. In fact, the politicians have the business pretty much to themselves, and they make a very good thing out of it. The bulk of the revenue goes for the maintenance of the Government and Government officials. A short time ago there was an outcry against the crowded state of the civil service and a retrenchment scheme was introduced, which must to some extent lighten the publio burdens. Only about a fortnight ago a mob of from twenty to thirty retrenched post and telegraph officials took their departure for New Zealand and other lands, prepared to work at anything that came first to hand. But after turning batches of officials out one door Ministers and members are said to be squeezing their friends in through another as opportunity offers. It's just the same old dodge we're all so familiar with over here,

The mining industry is said to be fairly prosperous at present, and there is a large amount of foreign and other capital invested in it. But it has received some rude shocks during the last few years. The habit of ex aggerating the value of mining properties, which is not quite unknown in this colony, has been tried in Tasmania with very disas trous results. Like all the other industries, that of mining is little more than in its infancy ; and yet it has already yielded some very large fortunes, though the luck in almost every instance appears to have fallen to the speculator and jobber in scrip rather than to the pioneer miner or the legitimate investor.
