From Wellington we learn that Mr William Hester late Town Clerk of Petone died on Sunday night. He was an appli cant for the position of Town Clerk here. Tomorrow night tin annual general meeting of the Foxton Eacing Club will be held. Messrs Abraham and Wiliams hold a stock sale at Shannon on Friday and a horse sale at Palmerston on Saturday. The body of Jame9 Cain, the elderly man who has been missing for some time, was found in a tributary of the Wairau river on Monday morning. It is supposed that he committed suioide. Mr Cecil Ehodes is having a survey made for the railway from Buluwayo to Gwelo and the Zambesi river. M. Zola and M. Perreux, his publisher, have been sentenced to a year's imprisonment and fines have also been inflicted upon them amounting to £1200 for libelliug the first Council of War. Judgment was allowed to go by default, but an appeal is to be itade on the ground that the defendants were not allowed to submit Dreyfus' evidence.

A children's plain and fancy dress ball is talked of, and will probably be held shortly. In reference to the London cablegram announcing that a successful trial with Baird's machine for automatically judging foot racing has been made at the Huddersfield Club's athletic sports in Yorkshire, the i .ventor, Mr A. L. Baird, is well-known in amateur athletic circles in New South Wai; i, where he occupies the position of honorary treasurer to the New South Wales Amnleur Athletic Association. The automatic judge was some time since given a public trial at a sports gathering in Sydney, but as the scope was limited, Mr Baird decid :d to seek a wider field for the purpose of exploiting the machine, and to this end sailed for England. Peculiar applications are sometimes received by the Agent-General. The latest is froni a would-be settler who desired to know whether the New Zealand Government would give him a cash bonus on arrival. Mr George Friend, Clerk of the House of Representatives, died at 9 o'clock on Tuesday morning at his residence, Thorndon quay, as the result of an illness of considerable duration. As showing mildness of the present season in Hastings, the Standard mentions that small fruits are already bursting into blossom. The average weekly output of coal from the Kaitangata Railway and Coal Company's mine is withiu a few tons of 3000 tons. I Mr Gladstone's statue, to ba erected in Westminst r Abbey, will be executed by Mr I Thomas Brock, R.A. Iu the house on Tuesday afiernoon the ! Premier moved, " That this House desire3 to place on record its high sense of the faithful s 'I'vices rendered to the House of Representatives during 35 years by the late George Friend, Esq., as Clerk AssisS ant and Clerk of the House of Representatives, and respectful y t udcr; to his fami'y tue assurauce of its sympathy w;«h them in their irreparable loss." Thj resolution was carried, and the House, as a fu tlier mark of respect, adjourned to 7. 80 ,i.m. A pub ican down South refused t;> allow the body of a dead man to be admitted to his hotel, b> cause it was " that of a prohibited person " un r l r the Licensing Act. His objec ion is said o have been a valid one. It is kind of catching. We notice that the Advocate has started a Temperanc? column. The export of fish from Napier, quite a new industry, is assuming considerab'e proportions. In the last half-year 220 tons were exported. The fishing fleet will be doub'ed shortly. Steam trawlers are coming from Sydney, Auckland and Wellington. The Harbour Board has been asked to provide special accommodation for the trade, and private enterprise is providing a large cool store. A new use has been discovered for hops — namely, the curing of bacon. It is found that a sprinkling of hops in the brine when bacon and hams are put in pickle adds greatly to the flavour of both, and enables them to be kept an indefinite period. Mr John Arnabaldi, of Newmarket, whose invention of a method of safely firing dynamite by means of gunpowder has been referred to lately (says the Auckland correspondent of the Otago Daily Times), has opened up negotiations with the United States Government through the American Consul, offering his discovery to that nation. Particulars of the invention were sent by the San Francisco mail to the United States Government through the Consul, Mr Dillingham. The Sydney public are lamenting the decease of the " Soudan donkey" This famous donkey had been at the Zoo for some thirteen years, having been brought from the Soudan by the warlike contingent that visited that region thirsting for blood in 1885, and of which visit it remained a living memorial up to the time of its lamented death. That donkey, says a Sydney paper, cost the country something like £350,000. At the Supreme Court at Blenheim, Mr Justice Denniston touched lightly on what he called the " ethics of the auction room." He had no hesitation in saying (reports a local paper) that if a person ran up a property merely with the intention of buying at the figures he quoted, the successful bidder, if he discovered the ruse, would be quite justified in crying off and repudiating his offer. An advertiser wants a situation as cook at flaxmi.l or hotel.