NEWS IN BRIEF.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1898, Page 5

NEWS IN BRIEF.

+ INTERPROVINCIAL. The Auckland Board of Education has decided to appoint another Assistant-In-spector of Schools, at a salary of £300 per annum. Nearly three-quarters of a million rabbits have been despatched from the Bluff in three steamers recently, and yet the local freezing works have not been nearly cleared of supplies. There are still large numbers in the several works, and it will not be possible to get rid of some of the rabbits till December. The Southland Frozen Meat works are becoming crowded with carcases of both mutton aid rabbits. Shearing was begun in Hawkes Bay last Monday. Plum wine, like the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, appears to have been more thau ordinarily responsible in producing the downfall of mankind. At East Gore on Sunday evening last the premises'of a maker of tltis fascinating variety of tipple were relieved of some 30 gallons of plum and gooseberry wine. There is a scarcity of feed in the Bruce district, and the other day one farmer sent 2000 hoggets to Oamaru by road. . A very primitive form of mining known as "blind stabbing" is much practised in the Mahakipawa district during: the summer months in the beds of the rivers and ci<eeks. The miner stirs up the auriferous wash with a rod, and, the water having cleared, secures the specks of gold on adhesive substance, usually tallow, on the rod. Miners sometimes obtain gold that gives small wages on some of the creeks. A band of Waikato Maoris belonging to the " New Salvation Army," which is said to be distinct from the Pakeha organisation, ai-e on a missionary tour amongst their benighted countrymen. One sauce manufacturer in Dunedin uses fully 30cwt of garlic per anni\m, and finds it necessary to import most of it. A very large area of laud in Toko will be laid down in wheat tins season. The Bruce paper estimates that the wheat crop on the plain will be far and away greater than last year or any season before in that district. Those who foretold that .potatoes would bring fabulous prices towards the end of the season were far out in their calculations. As a matter of fact they are ruling lower now than for mouths past. The Lyttelton Times quotes Derwents at country statious in Canterbury at £-4 15s to £5 per ton, and adds that the news that the Sydney market is glutted will not improve matters.