" PLUNDERED." (FROM THE "NELSON COLONIST," NOVEMBER 19.)

We do not know whether Mr. Thomas Russell, of Auckland, the President of the Directory of the Bank of New Zealand, combines with his business us a lawyer and bank director that also of a lay preacher; but somehow there is in hisspeech a smug religiousness of tone which would imply that he could as readily expound, or "pound," a text as he can earn six-and-eighlpence, or calculate a dividend of 10 per cent., with 7 per cent, more by way of bonus. When we find Scripture texts dropping glibly at a- public meeting from the mouth of chairmen of such large concerns as the B»nk of New Zealand, or of a great railway company, or any other money making commercial speculation, the thing jars a little on the feelings ; and few will blame one if memory recalls the .ostentatious piety of certain well-remembered characters whose public career evinced a hypocritical conjunction of creed and com merce. Without making any disagreeable comparison, we find Mr. Thomaa Russell eloquently holding forth to the bank shareholders on the advantages of patience and self-denial, and devoutly laying a holy text before people who were, like himself, thinking far less of Solomon than of percentages. However, as in the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh, so doubtless, in the fullness of that organ, Mr. Russell spake when he dilated on the words, " First do thy work in the field, and then build thine house." After this we looked down the report of his speech in search of something stronger than usual ; and, of course, it was soon found. The air of virtue which he claims for his establishment, and his indignant affection for the good name of, the colony, are as refreshing a& it would be to sit and listen to an hour's sermon from his lips, after the listener had risen from reading the histqiy of the Public Debts Aot. 