COUNTRY NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4370, 15 November 1875, Page 3

COUNTRY NEWS.

WHATAWHAT.4.

A well-attended meeting was held on Saturday, the 6th November, by the settlers in Whatawhata, on educational matters, —Mr. Davy in the chair. It was an extraordinary meeting in more ways than one. The result was that four gentlemen were appointed (one of whom took so little interest as not to attend the meeting) to act as a building committee, and to take the necessary steps as soon as possible. The strange part of this is that the.secretary, who so far has had the most of the trouble and expense, and who is in correspondence with the Government at present, is not appointed one of the new committee, or connected with it.

A dead body, the remains of the man who fell off the steamer Bluenose, at Alexander some time past, was picked up in the river a little below Whatawhata, on the morning of the GtliNovember, by natives. Itappearsto be much decomposed and disfigured by fish. The Waipa has been a fatal river to many a poor fellow—with its treacherous currents, — some of them good swimmers, too.

The weather has been very bad lately, raining and hailing. The hailstones have cut the garden stuff to pieces, even chopped the tops off the young oats, and as for barley, there is not a vestige left.—[Correspondent, November, IS7S.JJ

_ WANGAREI. The following news paragraphs are from the local paper : — The late rise in the price of kauri gum has made a marked difference in the export from Wangarci. Tlie Sovereign of the Seas, which left on Monday last, took no less than 130 bags gum. TVe understand there are other large parcels waiting shipment. The cutter Phantom has gone to Mercury Bay to load timber at the mills for the building of the "Wliauwhau Coal Mine Tramway. She is now expected, and the tramway will be commenced as soon as she arrives. On the morning of Thursday last news was brought into the village by Mr. W. Seccombe that Mr. Raise, baker, in the employ of Mr. B. Dent, had been found dead on the road between "\Vangarei and his residence at jSTobea' "Village. The intelligence cast quite a gloom over the whole settlement, as the deceased was generally liked for his quiet, unassuming demeanour. Ifc was supposed that either apoplexy or heart disease had been the cause of death, but the following day Dr. Sissons witnessed the body, and found that deceased's neck was broken. An inquest was held, when it was elicited from witnesses that the saddle of the deceased's horse, had been picked up near to where deceased lay, and the horse had wandered some distance up the road. The jury returned a verdict of " Accidental death." Mr. Halse was in the habit of riding to and fro to business, and being a man ef over fifty years, he rode a particu-