LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The New Brighton Borough Council' has granted the use of the Council Chambers for the polling place in the Tramway Board election on June 27. The Waimana correspondent of the "East Coast Guardian" writes that the Maori tohunga Rua has now a bodyguard of fifty trained volunteers, who are armed with the Government latest type of rifle. The Maoris expect that by the time the march round the (coast of Gieborne is complete the prophet will have the command of tour hundred armed men. The estimated expenditure for thei ensuing year on works in.. the borough of New Brighton, submitted io the Borough Council last night, amounted to £800. The estimates will be considered in detail at a special meeting of the Council on June 14,/ meanwhile they have been remitted to the Works Committee. The receipts for the year were estimated at £1934 4s sd. v The Auckland Trades and Labour Council has been discussing the question of under-weight bread. One speaker said he had been weighing some of the bread, and had found that the "21b loaves" were "short from one ounce to four ounces. It was a big item to the working man,- and it meant three or four loaves to himself a week. A motion was passed instructing the secretary to draw the attention of the Inspector of Weights to the matter. The construction of the huge" steel verandah. that will cover the 'platform " of the new railway station at JDunedia has been undertaken at the Hillside Workshops, ,and is now (says the "Otago Daily Times") practically completed.. The verandah, which is of a type that is now being adopted in all important towns of the world, will be some 950 ft in length and about 30ft in width, and will cover the whole platform frontage of the station andf extend for a considerable distance further, at both ends. . The sister in charge of St MaTy'i Home acknowledges with thanks the following gifts received during May: — ." Applfes, Mrs Hardy; jam, Melanesia Depot; vegetables; Burnham School j pork and bacon (weekly), Mrs An- -^ drews ; harvest offerings from Fern- . side, Governor's Bay, Teddington, Gebbie's Valley, Flaxton, Phillipstown, Lincoln, Oho'ka, Okain's Bay and Charteris Bay Churches; clothing, Mrs C. Maude, Mrs Albright; magazines and illustrated papers, Mrs C. H. Bridge, and Mr Shaw. Amongst the "sights" on H.M.S. Encounter during her visit to. Nelson were (cays the "Mail") a couple of "prisoners" under guard. The door of their "cell" was open, but a sentry with fixed bayonet kept them in. These men, it is understood, are alleged to bo concerned . in the Port Chalmerß "mutiny" on tho Encounter about a fortnight ago. The discontent arose - from the circumstances that the men had been deprived of their "washing and mending" afternoon— a Thursday half-holiday observed on the ship — tha captain declaring that the veseed had •hot been cleaned up properly. Many of the crew were put to washing deck* fatigue, and some of them shewed insubordination. I

During the month of May, ten births, two marriages and three deaths were registered in Lyttelton. The Waikare, from Melbourne and Hobai-t, arrived at the T3luff at midnight. Her mails should reach | ChristchuTch by the second express today. One, of Mr H. W, Bishop's first remarks from the Bench this morning was, " What are all those little boys doing in Court? Put them out at oncel" The boys left. It is reported that fully one hundred head of deer have beeai shot in the Vicinity of Tauranga during the present stalking season. In- one expedition a party of three men. killed "between thirty and forty. Another discovery of asbestos has been made in the Mount Arthur survey district (says the "Nelson Colonist' 3 ), and an application for a mineral jjjcgjjfreoting warrant over a thousand acres has been made. I Colonel Hume, Inspector of . Prisons, was in Lyttelton to-days and with the Mayor (Mr S. B. Webb) and the borough officials, inspected the work of the prisoners, who are engaged in .improving the recreation reserve at Cor-j eair Bay. , t . The Executive of the Dunedin Council of Churches privately interviewed the Dunedin Inspector of, Police this morning regarding tie sale of cigarettes to youths on Sundays. , It will confer with the Dunedin members of Parliament on Friday, with a view to 'securing an amendment of the law. A sitting of the Jiyttelton l'olice ■Court was held this morning, with Messrs C: Ferrier and J. T. Brice as the Justices on the Bench. A male first offender, who had been drunk and disorderly, was convicted, cautioned and discharged. A prohibition order was .issued against a man, with his own consent. ' In response to an invitation, Mr J. Rionardeon, a candidate to represent the Woolston-Heathoote<-Sumrier die- j triot on the Tram-way Board, met his friends • and supporters' in the Oddfellows' Hall, Woolston, . -last evening. . A J strong committee was formed, it tra& resolved that Mr Richardson should ; address the electors at. various places after the nominations closed. Some of the police officers and solicitors present at the Magistrate's Court to-day .expressed some strong -opinions regarding the use of pea-rifles by anyone who liked to have them. They snid that a 10s gun license would practically put a'stop to accidents arising from their careless use; and it was ab- J surd to prohibit tihe .use of shanghais while boys were free to make use of eo^ dangerous a' weapon as a pea-rifle without int-erf erence. At the meeting of thje New Brighton Borough Council last night a letter was read from the engineer of the Tramway Board, in which he Said, in reply to a statement mad© by a Councillor* , that he had visited the Heathcote Bridge, and failed to see any signs of "sagging." The Council considered the letter in committee', and afterwards appointed a committee to >meet the representatives of the Heathoote Road Board, and make an inspection of the bridge, bringing up a report at , next meeting of the Council. It has been stated that the reason for the frequency of bank holidays, in New Zealand is the necessity to overtake work inside the banks, and that bank holidays, therefore, are not really holidays fcr the banks' employees. This statement, however, ie contradicted. A reporter who went to the private entrance to the Bank of New Zealand today was informed by an officer that he was the only employee on the premises, and his presence was accounted "for by the fact that he lived there; The officer ' stated that the. employees never irent back to work on bank holidays. There was a standing rule that they. were not to b& about the bank on holidays. The holidays were statutory, and the banks themselves had nothing to do with the matter. The employees had to be given the holidays. 'In the fyreee-nt oaee, at the Bank of New Zeaand, -the employees would be ; away from the bank from about one o'clock on Saturday to nine o'clock to-morrow morning. On a recent Sunday, at the Linwood Methodist Church, there was unveiled a beaten copper memorial tablet bearing the following int-cription : — " In loving memory of Sarah Marcroft, the foundress of this church and Sunday School, and the donor of the site upon H'hich it stands, who fell asleep in Jesus, August 6, 1904, in her seventyfourth year. ' She hath done what ehe could.' " Mr J. A. Flesher, whouriveiled the. tablet, referred sympathetically to Mrs Marcroft's great assistance to the church, and her interest in the young folks. Whe,rew she went she established Sunday Schools. In Linwood .she had first of all started b Sunday School in her own hooise, but tlie school, grew so large that ehe had eventually made a present of tihe site of- the Mission Hall, at the corher of Cashel and Parkes Street, and 7 had founded the Sunday School, which was afterwards used as a Mission Hall. The Rev J. Orchard conducted the service, and ateo made reference to Mrs Ma rcrdf t' s good work in the district. With reference to the alleged delay In payment of the moneys earned by the local census sub^enunTerators, it is stated that for a voucher sent from Christchurch on. March 12, a cheque was received on Tuesday, May 29, by the second delivery. Asked if our informant could suggest any way of avoiding the delay in Wellington, the local enumerator replied there are three ways/: — (1) Give the census enumerator here an imprest account ; (2) let' the vouchers be provisionally certified (as they are in the case' of permanent salaries) and finally certified by the local enumerator on completion, of the work — in such a case a cheque would be posted to the sub-enumerator,, and the fact that the had this cheque, useless, of course, until countersigned, would "be an incentive to complete his work promptly; (3) let the local post) office pay the vouchers when certified by the local enumerator* and thus avoid all the delay through their having to be' sent to Wellington. This Was done in connection with the elections. It has transpired that during the Premiers' Conference in Sydney (says the Melbourne "Age") a suggestion was made by the proprietary of the "Brisbane Australasian," a weekly journal in London, through Mr Carruthers, to the effect that each of the States should pay the journal some hundreds a year as a subsidy- — £500 a year in the case of New South Wales— in return for which the publication would give so many pages per week to official and other State news, and supply a large number of copies for gratuitous circulation by the Agents-General. The proposal was not /proceeded withy end Mr Kidston, the Queensland PreJ mier, scarified both it and its authors. "In the first place," he said, "it is ft paper that has been run very much in the interests of the stinking fish party. ... Indeed, I think it has done us more harm than ' good. What we want is a paper circulating in the agricultural districts at Home. . . . What Australians in London think is a matter of small concern to us. What we want is to get at the agriculturist in England through the medium of English newspapers. When a newspaper like this asks for a subsidy, I am inclined to say what the third Napoleon Rid when application was made to ni for a suosidy for a newspaper: m ' If you need a subsidy you are not worth it, and if you are worth it you ilo not heed it.' »■

The Te Aute Commission sat for a short time this morning, and took formal evidence. Captain Edwin's weather forecast, telegraphed at noon to-day, is as follows: — "Moderate to strong westerly ; winds ; glass rise ; tides good ; sea moderate." A cheque for £10 has been handed to the treasurer of the Consumptive. Sanatorium by the treasurer of St Andrew's Church, as the result of the special collection taken on behalf of this fund on Sunday last. Mr F. T. Moore, a member of the Wellington Hospital Trustees, gave notice to-day to move in. the direction ( of urging the Government to set up a. Royal Commission of Inquiry regarding the meat supply of Wellington. He made a number of serious allegations. The second meeting of the current session of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury will b& held to-morrow evening in the chemical lecture theatre, Canterbury College, when Mr E. K. Mulgan will deliver an address on "The Home of the Kauri," illustrated by lantern slides. The address will deal not only with the botanical aspeot of the subject, but also with the various geological agencies which have influenced tlie growth, development and decay of the kauri bush. A . tobacconists' test case' was heard at Wellington to-day, the Stipendiary Magistrate deciding that . hotelkeepere. grocers and others who stocked and sold tobacco were not tobacconists within the meaning of the Shops Act. This means that Chinese storekeepers and others who sell tobacco can remain ©pen later than, eight o'clock, the hour which tobacconists petitioned for as the closing" hour, while tobacconists will have to close. A movement ie afloat to secure the repeal of the petition. Under the Magistrate's decision, practically, only hairdressers and tobacconists conic under the heading of tobacconists..