NEWS IN BRIEF.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 80, 1 October 1898, Page 2

NEWS IN BRIEF.

INTERPROVINCIAL. Auckland Hospital and Charitable Aid Board has had plans and specifications prepared, and will call for tenders for the erection of a small brick house of worship in connection with the Costley Home at Epsom, at a cost of about £250. * At the last meeting of the committee for the promotion of the completion of the Chrktchurch Cathedral it was agreed that the work — which is estimated to cost £12,000 — should be proceeded with so soon as half the amount was subscribed or guaranteed. A locomotive with an improved sparkcatcher has been specially fitted up in Auckland, and is to be tried on the Waikato line next summer. A settler in the Tapanui district has imported eight miles of wire netting for his property. The cost of railing it from Dunedin to Tapanui was greater than the freight from Scotland ! Owing to shortness of feed in the pastoral districts the prices of stock in the Westland province have gone up higher than they have been for the past 20 years. As a consequence the price of meat has been increased. The dressmakers of Greymouth have combined, and agreed to charge in future 3s a day for dressmaking. Property is low in lieefton. The other day two sections with a comfortable fiveroomed house were sold for £54. At Waituna West is the burnt shell of a giant rata tree with a clear space inside the remains measuring 18ft across, while the roots run about the surface of the ground for a distance of over 50ft from the old trunk. A well-known miner who has just settled down again on the Thames after a long absence in Western Australia, says that he found thousand!) of miners out of work in that colony. A meteor of extraordinary brilliance passed over Hastings last Wednesday evening. As it neared the earth it seemed to divide into three parts, which were followed by a beautiful, vari-coloured tail, the whole creating a pyrotechnic display of great magnificence, and illuminating the country for nearly half a minute. The Oamaru Borough Council has, by resolution, apol ogised to a ratepayer for libelling him, jtnd also resolved to refund 1 him £2 2s, solicitor's costs incurred for consultation as to his right of action for dafliages. The Council uced strong language about the ratepayer for supplying water to a neighbour who had no supply; and it, turned oat that he had been paying full water rates for both premises.