BRIEF MENTION.

Evening Star, Issue 10332, 4 June 1897, Page 4

BRIEF MENTION.

Mr H. P. Hill, of Christchurch, has resigned from the Commission of the Peace. The Government have made an appropriation of £2,000 for additions to the Porirua Aaylum, near Wellington. This is rendered necessary owing to overcrowding, and on completion patients from other parts of the colony will be removed there. The nine-roomed residence of MrMulchay, Wairongomai, has been burned down. The house and furniture were insured for £2OO in the Phoenix Office. The Auckland Chamber of Commerce have decided to hold an industrial and mining exhibition.

Mr John M'Gowan, Commissioner of Taxes, is gazetted Valuer-General undor the Government Valuation of Land Act of 1896, and Messrs William Duncan (Auckland), Albert Barns (Wanganui), Thomas Kennedy Macdonald (Wellington), Arthur Pyne O'Callaghan (Timaru), Andrew M'Kerrow (Hampden), and Hugh Carswell (Invercargill) are to be supervising valuers. The Government have decided to carry out the improvement work in connection with the Te Aroha hot springs and domain on the co-operative system. Mr Francis Hodge, of Coromandel, is gazetted a member of the Board of Examiners under the Mining Act, vice Mr James Coutts (resigned).

The Stock Department has instituted proceedings against the captain, and owner of the Innic for breach of the quarantine regulations in allowing a dog to land from the steamer without undergoing the necessary quarantine of six months. The owner of the dog will also be proceeded against. In the Supreme Court judgment was given in the case of Arnold, Cheney, and Co. (shipping agents, whose agents are iu business in Auckland) v. A. 8. Paterson and Co. (merchants, Wellington), in which plaintiffs claimed damages for breach of an agreement whereby defendants agreed to ship to Boston in the barque Alice, which caught fire at Wellington wharf, 350 tons of hemp at certain agreed rates of freight. There was also a couuter-action for damages sustained by defendants for alleged breach by plaintiffs of the same agreement. The Court found for defendants on the original claim and also on the counter-claim for £42 10s, this being the profit which they would have made if their goods had been brought to a proper market. Costs were given according to scale.

There was a loss of £l7O over the Canterbury winter show. The rainfall for April in the chief centres was:—Auckland, nine days, total fall in inches, 2.12 in ; Wellington, fourteen days, 6.91iu; Christchurch, four days, 0.25 in; Duncdin, nine days, 1.39 in. The Salvation Army's new Rescue Home for Women at Rockyside, Caversham, is to be opened on Wednesday, 16th inst., when the Hon. W. D. Stewart will preside. At the new home the Salvation Army will be able to classify the inmates, a system which has been found successful elsewhere.

The Mataura Licensing Committee declined to grant any eleven o'clock licenses, and desired the police to note that any infringement of the law in that respect should be followed by a prosecution. A new departure, that may have farreaching consequences, was made at the Swansea meeting of the Teachere' Conference of Great Britain. A proposal was tabled that £l5O should be voted to the quarrynieu who went out on strike on Lord Penrhyn's estate, and an amendment was moved that the rules of the Union be altered before making any grant to labor organisations. Supporters of the amendment objected to the new principle being introduced by a side-wind. The amendment was lost, upon which a poll was taken to allow the question to be decided according to the numerical strcDgth of the districts represented, A poll having been taken it was found that the amendment was rejected by a majority of 11,009, aud the resolution to make a grant to the quarrymen was declared c*rried amid loud cheers and a scene of much excitement and enthusiasm.