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Our Correspondents.

Trade: in most of the jobbing offices is pretty brisk at present, and has been for a few weeks. The near approach of the New Year partly accounts for this; but one office is very busy owing to the Musical Festival, which comes off next week. This festival marks a new feature in our colony's history, and I think Mr Robert Parker, the promoter and conductor, and the few musically-enthusiastic gentlemen who set the thing going deserve great credit for their enterprise and public spirit. The festivals which have been held for so many years at Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and other English cities, have done an immense amount of good in educating the people to a taste for high-class music, and they have also been the means of giving to the world some of the finest music which has ever sprung from the soul of man—for instance, « Elijah, » « Israel in Egypt, » « The Golden Legend," « The Revenge, » Cowen's « Language of Flowers, » and many other masterpieces of such geniuses as Mozart, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Sir Arthur Sullivan, &c. Mr Parker, a prominent Wellington musician, last year made a trip to the Old Country. and while there he was very much impressed with the festivals, and on his return he mentioned the matter to a few lovers of the Muse, with the result that we are to have a week of the best music ever written. The choir numbers 150, with an orchestra of 50. The pieces to be produced include those which I have mentioned above, excepting « The Revenge. » and there is to be a miscellaneous concert, at which selections from many of the great masters will be given. The leading vocalists of Christchurch and Wellington have been engaged to sing the solo parts. It is to be hoped that this will be the inauguration of an annual New Zealand Musical Festival.

Mr C. S. Thomas's friends will be pleased to learn that his musical genius has received recognition from the Education Department, who have adopted his New Zealand Patriotic Hymn for the use of the public schools in the colony. Mr Brett, of Auckland is now printing 20,000 copies for the department. Mr Thomas, who is a resident of this city, and was formerly a resident of Napier, was the composer of the New Zealand Exhibition Cantata.

Hestia has been swallowed up in The Monthly Review, a religious, philosophical, and scientific magazine, published by the old firm and also monthly.

One of our writers is making his mark in the Old Country. Mr E. Tregear, of Wellington, has an article in Nature on Thunder, and the Stone Axe. In the Anthropological Society's Transactions, Mr Tregear has a paper on the Maori and the Moa; and in the Westminster Review he contributes a paper on Compulsory Education. Some few weeks ago Mr Tregear gave a series of lectures in this city on « Volapük, » and he has formed a class for its study.

The second part of the Art Album of New Zealand Flora, by Mr and Mrs E. H. Featon, is published. The illustrations are really works of art, and reflect the highest credit on Messrs Bock and Cousins, the chromo-lithographers, printers, and publishers.

In a recent number of the London Sporting and Dramatic News is a page of excellent sketches of « Hunting in New Zealand, » by a Wellington artist, Mr J. S. Allan.

Last month a member of our craft, Mr Wm. S. Easton, departed this life at the early age of 23 years. He served his time in the Government Printing Office of this city, and shortly after finishing his time he determined to travel. He was for some time in Sydney, from whence he went to Queensland, where he caught a cold and returned home to die. His father, Tom Easton, who is now in the Government Printing Office, is one of the early comps., having worked on the old Christchurch Independent and also on the Press of the same city, when J. E. FitzGerald was the liberal easy-going editor and proprietor.

I have also to record another death in our midst. Early on Saturday morning, the 17th inst., Mr George Nias died, in his 72nd year, after several years' ailment, though he held a frame in the Government Printing Office up to the time of his death. Mr Nias was of a very reserved disposition, and but little is known of his history, although it was understood that his had been a life full of adventures. The following are a a few gleanings. It was understood that Mr Nias came of good parentage, for he was above the average comp. in education, and that he learned the trade in London. He is next heard of as being a newspaper proprietor in Vancouver Island, where one of his daughters was married to the manager of a large timber business. His paper collapsed during a time of depression, and he went to California, where he became one of the prospecting party which discovered the Eldorado of the Red River. After doing well as a prospector during the height of the Californian gold-fever, Mr Nias settled down in Montgomery-st., San Francisco, as a stationer and printer, but during the great fire in that city, he lost all his savings by the total destruction of his premises and stock. After wandering about for some time he became a clerk in the Melbourne office of Greville & Burns [? Bird], who were the originators of the newspaper correspondence in Australia. We next hear of Mr Nias as owning a smelting business in Nelson, but things did not go right, and eventually he came back to case, taking up a frame in the Government Printing Office. where he had been for some seven or eight years before his death. Mr Nias was twice married, the first family being settled in Vancouver, while his widow and one son reside in this city. Just before his death his fellow-employés raised a subscription for him, and handed Mrs Nias a few pounds.