TABLE TALK.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 154, 1 July 1901, Page 1

TABLE TALK.

Parliament opened. Bad weather on the coa§t. Boers active on the Delagoa line. S.k. Mararoa i'or Sydney this evening. Outward 'Frisco mail next Thursday.

An armoured train dispersed a Boer commando.

Grafton Football Club is leading for the senior championship. Grand Hotel tire inquest has been adjourned till next Thursday. New Zealand Customs duties came into force in the Cook Group on arid from June 12. . . . -

Mr J. H. Witheford, M.H.Ri, addresses his constituents in St. James' Hall this evening. ... ;

An. Austrian exodus from the colony has set in. It is stated that over 600 have left here this year.

Messrs Geo. Fowlds, Massey, Lawry, and Lang, M's.H.lt., left for" Wellington via the West Coast yesterday.

The 27th. birthday of King George of Tonga was celebrated on the 18th ult. with much rejoicing at Nukualofa.

Last Friday, Mr John Pliminer, well known as "the Father of Wellington," completed the eighty-ninth year of his age.

The Consui for France (Count de Courte) and the Countess de Courte leave Wellington short]}' for a holiday trip to France.

Mr H. E. Leefe, British Resident Commissioner on the island of Rotuma, north of Fiji, died recently on the island at the age of 48 years.

The transcript of the evidence given before the Teachers' Salaries Commission in the South Island alone covers one thousand pages of typewritten matter.

The natives of Aitntaki (Cook Group) saj- that the comet which was visible lately was the spirit of Queen Victoria come to revisit her distant possessions. A prohibited person down South wrote to a newspaper to suggest that a two days' amnesty be granted to him and his "fellow sufferers" in honour of the Eoya'l visit to Dunedin. Forty Austrians leave here this evening, for Sydney, en route to New Caledonia, under engagement through the Austrian Consul in Auckland (Mr E. Langguth). They are to go on to road work at 6/ per day and frea quarters.

A movement is being taken up in Wanganui to inaugurate church choir contests-, on this coast similar to the brass band contests. The choirs on the coast are to be consulted with a view to arranging a contest early, next year. The Ijjspeeior-Geueral, at a meeting of the Teachers' Salaries Commission at Wellington, indignantly protested against any implication that he had Consulted the Council of the Educational Instiute in drawing up a colonial scale of staff and salaries for teachers.

There are 106 entries this year for the Trinity College (London) examination in vocal and instrumental music, to be held here on or about next October. In addition to this number there are one or^two entries for the higher examination. The number is far above that of any previous year. Mr Daniel Morgan, E.N., one of the veterans who accepted the invitation of the Government to attend the luncheon at Dunedin, was seventeen years chief of the police of the Eoyal yacht, and when the present King was nine years old he frequently carried him through the surr to the Queen's yacht at Cowes. r The late Mr Henry Nicholas, the pioneer trader of the Cook Islands, first went to liar o tonga in 1863 croui Auckland, in the schooner Victoria, owned by the Maori chief Paul Tuhaere, of Orakei, who went on a cruise to Ilarotonga to visit the lands of his remote ancestors. He was in partnership for many years with the late Captain J. B. Young, and the firm owned and sailed a number of trading schooners.

A Southern paper says: As a sequel to the unpleasantness with the Hon. Mr Hall-Jones, in reference to rooms at Searle's Hotel required for the Eoyal suite, the' resignation of Mr T. E. Donne, the Government Tourist Manager, is ]ikely to be forwarded to the Government at the close of the Eoyal tour, and that Mr Donne will ask to be allowed to.return to his former branch of the Public Service, viz., the Railway Department.

Mr Allan is at present engaged in doing a triangulation survey of the Bay of • Plenty^ extending from the present base line at Maketu, and will be continued to join toe triangulation already completed somewhere near 1 Opape' He !. has established a trig station on Whale Island, and another on the Whakatane hills, a mile further inland than the previous station. This very necessary work is beinff done by Government, and when completed will be a great boon to private surveyors.