WELLINGTON SPECIAL.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 290, 14 December 1901, Page 2

WELLINGTON SPECIAL.

TEACHERS' SALARIES,

(Special to Times.) , . . Wellington, last night. L is stated here that it is being discovered that there are aq- ualies in the proposed new colonial s, of payment tor school-teachers, w’ - will interfere with its working as si .nh as was expected. The smile, - a exoectcd to come into operatic nh toe new year, \va» tae outcome c;' ,m repressed desire from tne teachers t , ue r ijeved from the CB.pnces, ui . Education Boards. Only a fair trial will prove whether the teachers o et relief under the national scale. It is expected, at any rate, to be the cause ot some heart-burning. Teachers, it is satd, will find it inconvenient not to have a start of relieving teachers, as there is no proMsion for such a class under the scale. Teachers here are already complaining about one phase of the proposed scale under which advances of salary are to be given to teachers hitherto occupying subordinate positions. The Wellington Board has been accustomed to maintain a staff of three or four relieving teachers, but it has determined only to provide for the relief of pupil teachers when sick out of its general funds.

WADI ATE FIRE. Opinion was expressed by witnesses at the enquiry into the fire on the Waimate that the outbreak was due to spontaneous combustion of damp flax stowed in the holds. Tnishas caused Mr J. R. Stansell, the well-known tiax-iniller at Te Horo, to write to Mr Field, M.H.R., stating that such views are not borne out by the experience of llax-millers. He suggests that Mr Field request the Minister of Agriculture to make experiments. Mr Fulton, Government tlax grader, is also against the idea of spontaneous combustion, which does not tally with his experience of damp fiax. He thinks the conflagration was due to a spark or a heated pipe.

MR JOHN PAUL. ■John Paul, arrested at Auckland in connection with an embezzlement from the D.1.C., at Christchurch, is in no wav connected with the company. By a strange coincidence the secretary of the local branch of the D.I.C. is John Paul, who has been in the service of the company since its formation. , TROUBLESOME NOISES.

The Wellington Harbor Board has prohibited both bell-ringing and whistling on steamers on the eve of leaving. Port whistling was stopped some time back, and now the Superintendent of the Fire Brigade has successfully raised the objection that the ringing of bells is likely to demoralise his brigade.

A CONVICT. If 'rill ii.i doubt surprise most people to lean- that Thomas Hall, sentenced a: Timaru in 188(1 to penal servitude foi life for attempting m poison libs wife with antimony, will, in (he ordinary course of events, fie a free nan in two years’ time, the remittance o‘ the term of sentence being of course subject to the prisoner s behaviour. His conduct up to the present. during confinement, is said to nave men especially good. it was only last week that Hall’s wife, who almost from first to last lias advocated Ms cause, divorced him in the Dive,ae Court at, Auckland, under the previsions of the Act of year JMIX, which sanctions divorce when respondent lias been imprisoned for upwards of so'.tn years for attempting flic life of petitioner.