NEWS NOTES

Grey River Argus, 30 November 1906, Page 4

NEWS NOTES

— ♦ — The late Sergeant Joseph Greenwood, who died at tHe VeteraWs Home (Auckland) on the; nth inst, was from Bradford, in Yorkshire, and enlisted in H.M. 65th Foot, at the age of nineteen. He. arrived with his regiment in the colony in 1846, and served through the- whole of the Maori wax, from 1860 until 1865, in' the Taranaki and Waikato campaigns, .and took his discharge with the rank of sergeant, after twenty-one • years' service, and was awarded the New Zea land^ war medal. Migrating to Whaa Sfarei, he was employed in farming for several years, and after the death of his wife entered the Veterans' Home Deceased was an enthusiastic cricketer and most popular wherever he resided being recognised as a man of religious principles, integrity and self-re-spect. He died at the age of eightyyears, and was Buried' with military honors. The magnitude of the worEs in hand at present under the Wellington City Engineer may be gauged "to some extent by the following particulars of the number of men (permanent and . casual) employed in various pares of the^ city and suburbs, the total being 535 :.— Trackmen (looking after the permanent-way) 16; track-cleaners, 8; employed on drainage works, 14 ; at the drainage station, 7 ; carpenters (on various works), 15 ; general- works including street cleaning, house refuse . collecting, street watering, repairs to kerbs arid channels,- asphalting, laying wood blocks, ' etc) 2 1 5 ; employed on Kelburne Park, 98;. '.0n tramways exten sions, 61; clerks of works, 3; employ ed on Brooklyn reservoir, 29; water works (laying reticulation-pipes), 69. Mr R. Henry, the curator of Resolution Island '(a Government sanctuary for game) mentions in a letter to the Tourist Department that he has been >on the trial of ferrets, which even the wekas have learned to fear. He has noticed a good many teal, Very tame, on', a lake inland from Fanny Bay. These birds, he states,

get most of their living by diving for little shelled snails that live eight or ten feet deep on a muddy bottom. At tached to a sheet of. Mr Henry's letter were a couple of queer-looking pipe fish, like silvery worms; with a beak. These creatures- swarmed into Dusky Sound "recently in myriads to the great delight of blue cod and seagulls. j On result of the late fire on Lamb- . ton quay, Wellington, was the breakage of the telephone wire to the Fire Brigade station, which was cut off for some days.. This was rightly . looked . upon as a serious matter by the Cor poration, and with the view of guarding against a similar interruption in future, it ws decided to request the : department to connect the fire station wth'the telephone exchange by a duplicate wie running in a different dirtc tion from- the present one. A reply has been' received from the Superintendant of Electric . Lines that the request cannot be granted, as a duplicate wire could not be taken in any other direction. The present wire is extremely unlikely, according to the j department to be broken owing to another large conflagration of the kind recently experien cd. I A Newtown resident complained recently to the City Council that a com pany ol street-preachers took up their position next to his shop, remaining there from half past seven one evening until half past ten. He alleged that this intereferred with his business and stopped traffic. The writer also complained that "his wife could not get the children 'to sleep"'becauseof the proximity of the street preach ers. The latter have been written to b\ the Council and informed that they must not congregate at this particular snot. The flaxmill hands' in the whole of the Wellington district have cited the members of the New Zealand Flaxmil lers Association demanding an increase of wages and reduction ot hours. The demands of the men have been formulated and placed before the mill-owners. It is probable a conference will be arranged before the dispute goes to the Board of Court. The idea of holding the 1908 Band Contest in Wanganui, says the Chronicle, is being spoken about, and a suggestion has been made that the Mayor should call a public meeting in connection with the matter.