BRIEF MENTION.

Evening Star, Issue 9124, 3 May 1893, Page 4

BRIEF MENTION.

Mi Ballance’s life was insured in the Government office for £I,OOO. The Rev. E. D. Cecil, when in Melbourne, - preached two or three times for Efr Strong, of the Australian Church, to a congregation of about 1,000 persons, and was much appreciated.—‘ Timaru Herald.’ " " ' "

The Wellington ‘Press’ says the Dunedin and Reef ten sharebrokers—or, to give-them their correct name, jobbers—were not an unkindly set of men. They had mostly been failures in every other walk of life, and it was a question with them between hard work, share jobbing, or -the precarious and soul-trying book-fiend industry. They were not models of morality ; on the contrary, they had no morality—that is a thing which docs not exist in mining finance. The Victorian Postal Department, with a view to facilitate public business, established a number of receiving offices in suburban shops, from which messages may be sent to the nearest telegraph station by telephone. A Napier preacher said the other day a well-dressed and stylish man could always find room in any pew in a church; everyone would shift up for l\im, but it was strange that so many should be busy with their Bibles and hymn-books when a poor, though cleanly person, sought admittance. There was a good deal of modern snobbery, and it was this snobbery that made itself manifest on occasions when it should least be exhibited.

Mr Houston, M.H.R. for the Bay of Islands, thinks that the Government made a mistake in insisting on having twelve appointments to the Legislative Council instead of the nine offered by Lord Glasgow. Some sapient justices at Napier held the evidence in a threatening behaviour case to be contradictory, yet lined the defendant two shillings. Herr Rcischok, the Austrian naturalist who visited the colony a few years ago, has advised his Maori friends in the Waikato that he now fills the post of curator of the Museum at Linz, the Capital of Upper Austria, and his native place. The Auckland police stopped the 1 Observer’s ’ missing word competition. Pastor Chiniquy’s home in Montreal has been destroyed by fire. A valuable library was destroyed. The loss is only partially covered hy insurance. Since the Sydney Labor Bureau has been in operation about 8,700 persons have been sent to situations throughout the colony. There are yet about 0,000 unemployed in Sydney. Perth (W.A.) is to he lighted electrically in four inonths.

A New Zealand Alliance meeting at Te Awamutu passed a resolution appealing to the Government to take measures by especial enactment to suppress illicit traific in liquor in the King Country.

Two more cases of smallpox at Perth were reported to the authorities yesterday. It is hoped a compromise will be arranged between Count Caprivi and the Moderate party in the Reichstag over the Army Bill. The compromise will probably lie effected on a basis of a progressive increase in the peace footing of the army by annual instalments—the increase to be limited to 7d,000 men. This proposition will reduce the Estimates by tM,-.0,000.

An account of an interview with Sir Samuel Griffith on the question of federation appears in the Westminster ‘ Gazette.’ Sir ■Samuel thinks that colonial federation is purely a question of method, but Imperial federation is improbable. It is doubtful, he says, whether the colonies will remain loyal to the Mother Country unless they receive more consideration from her.

Mr H. Bottomley, who stood his trial for the fraud in connection with the Hansard Publishing Union, and who was acquitted by a jury, is suing the oiticial receiver for malicious prosecution.

A crowd of Anarchists in Marseilles, France, stoned the police ami hussars. The latter dispersed the rioters with their sabres, wounding a large number of them.

The actions brought by Kikiliana and other Natives against John London in connection with the Kaitaia purchase, and involving a sum of £BOO, are being heard at Mongonui by Dr Giles, 11. M. London has laid an information against Kikiliana charging him with perjury. The Nelson Education Board deprecate an interchange of inspectors, but favor a periodical conference of inspectors. The appointment of an assistant-inspector (for which there wore forty-one applications) was next meeting. The tender of George Morison (Dunedin) for £SO-1 has been accepted for the erection of a clock tower on the post and telegraph oliicc, Invercargill.