TELEGRAPHIC NEWS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 7544, 18 May 1903, Page 2

TELEGRAPHIC NEWS.

(Per Press Association.) A BRIDEGROOM'S SUICIDE. GISBORNE, Last Night. A. labourer named Orr Marshall Shankleton died to-day. The jury returned a verdict of suicide. On Monday a gentleman being informed that Shanldeton was to be married next day, remarked that that could not be true, as h e was already a married man. Thereupon Shankleton, who overheard the remark struck him a violent blow, splitting his lip and damaging his teeth. On Tuesday ho was married to a young girl. On Friday afternoon he was charged with assaulting the man he had struck Defendant did not appear, and in his absence was fined £3 with costs. That evening Shank-' lcton was found in a serious condition, and admitted taking rough on rats owing to trouble that he had. He was taken to the hospital where he died this morning. BISTRESSE D GENTLEFOLK. GISBORNE, Saturday. At the Police Court to-day a ...woman was sentenced to seven I days' hard labor for obtaining j money under false pretences. She had gone round obtaining money for alleged cases of distressed geii- | tlefolk. A telegram to the police from an Auckland- solicitor stated that the woman was respectable, and tho owner of property there LICENSING FINE. Hugh Mackay, licensee of the Turang-anui Hotel, was fined £10 for exposing liquor for sale on a Sunday, and £5 Is Tor Iceeping op!en his premises, one conviction being recorded on tho license. Notice of appeal was given. Mr Barton, S.M., said he disbelieved two witnesses who swore they were not served with liquor. POLITICS. AND FARMERS, Mr T. P. Lett, a member of the local branch of the Farmers' Union, at yesterday's meeting resigned, on the grounds that when lie joined lie did so on the. .understanding that the organisation was of a non-political nature. The President, Mr Cockburn-I-lood, said it was absurd to talk of banishing politics from their meetings, for all legislation appertaining to or affecting the interests of land owners must come into tho life of the Union. It was utter nonsense to talk of it being kept out. Further, he desired to be -distinctly understood that he would decline to represent the Board at the. Colonial Conference if he were not allowed to discuss tho legislation of the country. The meeting decided that Mr Cockburn-Hood be ciuirely free to a'Jt according to his own judgment. BIBLEREADI \Tr IN SCHi. f.J,S. WELLINGTON, Last Night. Interviewed this afternoon, Bishop Neligan made a few remarks on the question of Bible-readino- in schools. Ho said that in England the reading oi - the Bible wag tau h( . even m board schools, and it was only in the minority that it was no I. Whenever any difficulty existed as regards religious education in England it was through want oi religion on one side or the other. J hey had a conscience clause—as there always should be—and the conscience clause wa.s very faithfully observed. Out of 900 children m his own national schools he had never known an aggrieved parent during a period of nine years. He had never heard one complaint of proselytising in North or East of England or in London. He came to New Zealand with an absolutely open mind as to local conditions, methods or needs, but there was one thing on which his mind was definitely made up, and that was that it was now as true as day that righteousness alone exalteth a nation.