BREVITIES.

Evening Star, Issue 11682, 14 February 1902, Page 1

BREVITIES.

Twenty-three Boers surrendered at Middeitburg "(Transvaal). Land has been set apart for a quarantine station at Camp Bay, in Lyttelton Harbor. Lord Kitchener indicts the Boers for the cold-blooded murder of fifty-seven more natives. The proposal to introduce rating on unimproved value in the Borough of St Albans has been adopted by 350 votes against 218. As was generally expected, neither Barnes nor Darling is taking part in the fourth test, which was commenced on the Sydney Oval to-day. The Anglo-Japanese Treaty, which came as a surprise on the official world, has received the moral support of President Roosevelt's Cabinet Peter Redman was received into the hospital yesterday suffering from a broken kg. He was working on the Flat, and a face of earth coming down on him caused the injury. There was five hours' severe fighting on the night of die 7th inst. along the biocivhouse line from Heilbron northward. Two Boer commandants were among the captives. At the Napier Supreme Court a decree nisi was granted in the action W. H. M'Kay v- It. M. M'Kay and James Cameron, co-respondent, with £3OO damages against the co-respondent. A Bill providing that no persons shall be allowed to marry unless they produce a certificate affirming that they are in a good state of health will be brought before the Austrian Reichsrath shortly. The estimate of the Boer losses through Kitchener's " drive" is 100 killed and wounded, while 600 of the enemy have been bagged in two days. In the latter many colonial rebels are included. Four aeronauts made a balloon ascent through a snowstorm at Paris recently, and remained up for four hours, above them being a blue sky and beneath, obscuring the earth, a dense layer of clouds. Dr MacGregor hap been granted six months' leave to visit the Old Country, and during his absence the Asylums and Hospitals Department will be administered by D.- Truby King, of Seacliff. ' At Wellington yesterday, in the. case of the woman Alice Brown, charged with arson at Newton, the jury disagreed. The Cluef Justice expressed the opinion that in certain cases majority verdicts should be accepted. The official returns of immigration and emigrationtffor 1!X)1 show that the arrivals in New Zealand totafled 25,086 and the departures from the colon}' (including 1,178 members of contingents) 18,564, leaving a balance in favor of arrivals at 6,522. Sir hundred Boers, under the leadership of Malau, attacked the Fraserburg convoy After feinting to the north, they made adesperate charge. Our casualties were twenty-two, including Major Crofton (killed). The enemy are said to have lost heavily. It has been definitely settled that colonial troops are to be present at the Coronation ceremonials. The exact part that tbey will take therein has not:, however, been settled yet, but it is believed that they will accompany the State procession through London. The monthly meeting of the Committee of the Queen's Jubilee Convalescent Fund, held in the Town Hall last evening, was attended by Mesdames Callan (in the chair), A. W. Morris, E. Reynolds, Martin, and Johnston Brown. Several patients were granted the necessary change of air. At Bnlclulha yesterday Mr Cruickshank, S.M., held that hop beer was intoxicating, and therefore fined Henry Rose, who had sold it at the load show, in tie nominal sum of £1 and costs, because he was satisfied that defendant was ignorant of the effect of the hops and other ingredients he had used in the manufacture of his beer. Two large Newfoundland dogs have been enrolled as regular members of the Paris police. Their special duty is to assist the " agents plougeurs "in saving life. They are exercised"every day by pranging into the Seine and rescuing a policeman, who pretends to be drowning. The dogs are trained to seize the apparently drowning man by his clothing and drag him ashore. Each of these splendid animals cost £2O. The French papers regard the AngioJapanese Treaty as a pledge of peace and as rcmoviug grounds of uncertainty, especially with regard to Corea; the Austrian papers think it will only transfer the sphere of Russian activity—probably to the European East; while the American papers unanimously vote it a guarantee for the preservation of an open-door policy. The English Radicals, while favoring Japan's friendship, think that England will find the treaty obligations too onerous. The following inquiries for missing friends appeared in 'Lloyd's' of December 29:—Mitchell (Abraham) left Cnlford Heath, Bury St Edmunds, in 1860-61, for Melbourne or Dunedin. Brother William asks.—Pownceby (John and Mary A.) are sought by sister Annie. John was in business as an oyster dealer in Wellington; Mary Ann married his manager, Mr Greenwood.—Tarbarer (Charles F.) left Hallow, Worcester, for Wellington, with his daughter Ellen in 1870. Son Charles inquires. The paternal Government of France have provided hire-purchasers with a new idea of raising the wind. A court decided that articles bought on the hire-puchase system can be sold on the day after receipt, and the hirer is not liable to prosecution so long as lie keeps up the regular payment of the instalments. The impecunious Frenchman is consequently now able to realise the value of a grand piano or a set of dining room chairs at the initial expense of a single month's instalments. This is better than the Mont de Piete. The commissioner of the 'Christian Herald' who is investigating the condition of the famine-stricken region near Pelrin. China, writes from Sianfu that, the autumn crop will Tnrnish a lew months' food, but being the first successful, crop for five years it will not be sufficient to last until another can be harvested. He predicts a repetition of the famine in the-coming spring. The deaths from famine in Shensi he places at two and a-half millions, equal to 30 per cent ol the population. The commissioner rode for four days through villages to the north of the Weiho River, seeing hardly 200 people. The whole region was abandoned and desolate.

A very neat and appropriate obefek of red granite has been placed in the Northern Cemetery, bearing tie inscription : " Erected by a few friends in memory of John Lillie Gillies, first secretary and treasurer Dunedin Harbor Board. Born at Rothesay. Scotland, 19th January, 1832 ; died at Dunedin 27th September, 1897." When funds were being raised for the purpose it was understood that it was intended to perpetuate his devotion to philanthropic matters—his gratuitous, zealous, and unwearied efforts on behalf of tie Kaitangata Miners' Relief Fund, etc Two contracts for electrical machinery have recently gone to Germany l !—one from Manchester and the other from Leyton. The reason given in both cases is thai the German tenders were the lowest—in the Manchester case by as much as £36,000. At present the electrical industry in Germany is so depressed that tie makers are glad of any market at all; and even at the best of times they have, perhaps, adopted a familiar business method and quoted a particularly low price as an advertisement and a bait for further orders. These matters must be taken into consideration when discussing the ethics of sending contracts'abroad.