WELLINGTON ITEMS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11593, 31 May 1898, Page 6

WELLINGTON ITEMS.

[From Our Correspondent.] 'WELLINGTON, May 30. I have good authority for stating that Parliament will bs opened on Friday, June 24. , The annual report of the Registrar of Friendly Societies is likely to possess some features of unusual interest. The report itself will not be available until it is laid on the table of the House, but I understand that the Registrar has been working out the mortality tables on entirely new lines Hitherto these tables have, in the general branch, been calculated on the basis of the English Manchester Unity, and in the temperance branch on that of the Rechabites in England. Now, however, the tables are based on calculations confined entirely to experience within New Zealand. The result is the demonstration all through dlf a much lower rate of mortality. As a means of bridging the year which now elapses between the close of the compulsory school age and the age at which boys and girls may enter upon factory work, the “ Post'” urges that another year should he added to the period of compulsory attendance at the primary schools. It says that “ besides bridging over the gap between school and the factory, such a reform would, it seems probable, help to relieve the extreme pressure now' put upon berth teachers and pupils in our primafy schools by the requirements of the standard exacted by. the Department.’!. . - , ‘