Local and General.

Clutha Leader, Volume XX, Issue 1031, 27 April 1894, Page 6

Local and General.

The Rev. John M'Neil, the celebrated Scotch evangelist, who is now at Capetown, has intimated his intention nf being in New Zealand during May and June. A woman named Mary Sullivan has been fined LlO and costs (L 6 10s) for sly grog-selling in the King country at Mokau. A train ran over a cab on the Port Adelaide line, the driver being killed and two of the occupants fatally injured. The Masterton Licensing Bench intend to charge L 2 per diem for conditional licenses and to inspect hotels personally. The value of the exports of Victoria for the March quarter decreased by LI, 149,000. Sydney ia gradually becoming the pivot of Australian trade. Mr Grey, of Auckland, has been appointed shorthand reporter and typewriter and assistant private secretary to the Premier. The Victorian Premier, Mr Patterson, promises to introduce a provision in the Cheap Money Bill permitting advances to leaseholders. In addition to 5 per cent, interest 2 per cent, per annum will require to be paid as sinking fund for the redemption of the loan. The Minister of Lands is engaged upon a scheme for letting contracts for hush-felling and giving the men employed on them the option of taking up the land thus cleared, with the price of felling added to the value of the land. A Frenchman named Eugene Possel, 60 years of ago, wiis found murdered in North Melbourne last week. His Jhands and feet were tied, asd he had apparently been battered to death. There was also a gunshot wound in the body. Robbery was evidently the motive for the crime. A woman named Burgess, who resided in the same house, has been arrested on the nominal charge of vagrancy. The Registrar of electors for the city of Wellington, acting upon instructions, has struck off from the city electoral roll all those who did not vote as the licensing election — over 6000 names. The suburban roll is being treated similarly. The Premier denies that the registrar of electors acted under instructions from the Government in striking all non- voters at the licensing election off the city electoral roll, A deputation from the Wellington unemployed waited on the Premier on Tuesday and urged that work be found for some 300 men out of employment. In reply to the deputation, the Premier complained of the terms of the advertisement calling the unemployed together, in which it was said " We must have work." He wished toilers to distinctly understand that the Government would not be dictated to, and that mass meeting* were unnecessary. Every, effort was being made to provide means for tha surplus labour of the colony, but the Government had no means to provide merely relief works. He also pointed our that the Government could not continue to provide for surplus labour which . arrived from Melbourne or Sydney through the establishment of cheap fares.