TELEGRAPHIC.

Auckland Star, Volume IX, Issue 2519, 22 April 1878, Page 3

TELEGRAPHIC.

(From Our Own Correspondent)

WELLINGTON, this day. NEW LICENSING LAW. It is understood that one of the first measures to be introduced next session will be a brewers' and publicans' bill—the intention of the measure being to prevent brewers from becoming proprietors of hotels. Four-fifths of the hotels in Wellington are owned by brewers now. "^"^k HsUl H •___-.-_--. WELLINGTON, this day. SIR JOHN COODE. The Hinemoa left at noon to-day for Greymouth. She will take Sfr John Coode from there to Milford Sound, then to New Plymouth, and probably Patea and Wanganui before takihg him to Auckland via East Coast. CHRISTCHURCH, this day. A Mother Charged with Killing a Child. Trump Card was scratched this afternoon tor all Ma engagements. At a meeting of the Corn Exchange Committee it was resolved to petition the Government to have a large number of trucks constructed to meet the requirements of next season. Sarah Steele, wife of George Steele, carrier, of South Townfßelt, was arrested last night, charged with having caused the death of her son, William, nine years of age. It seems Mrs Steele was heard screaming in the garden, and tho neigh hours on going up fouud her with her son in her arms insensible and bleeding copiously from a wound above his loft ear. Near at hand were the kitchen poker and tho boy's felt hat both stained with blood, the latter with a hole cut through at a place corresponding with the wound in the boy's head. In explanation, Mrs Steele said to tho neighbours, she supposed the boy had been throwing the poker up into the trees, and it "fell on his head, inflicting the wound. The boy died a few hours afterwards. The medical statement is that there is a hole through the skull and the brain is penetrated, also that the wound is caused by a blow of considerable force to cut through the boy 's hat and inflict such a wound as that described. Mrs Sims, a neighbour, says she heard Mrs Steele call to the boy in an angry tone, and then go towards him shortly before the affair occurred.