NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7719, 18 August 1886, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The railway workshops at Napier employ nearly fifty hands. Mr. Commissioner Barton has commenced to take evidence at Faeroa, Ohinemuri. The Wellington brick makers have not been able to (supply the local demand lately. It i 3 cxpeetea that the Auckland members will reach Onehunga early on Friday morning. The Maoris on the West Coast are now industriously planting and preparing for the coming summer. Tenders are soon to be called for a new and handsome building for the Colonial Bank at Waugauui. A special potato competition is being arranged under the auspices of the Normanby Horticultural Society. Mr. H. E. Alport, who died a few days ago at Uhristchurch, was the oldest established auctioneer there. Mr. Mitchelsou, Mr. Vv'hyte, and Mr, Dargavilie (M.H.K.'s) arrived by the Kawea at OuehuQga yesterday. The Victorian unemployed are continuing their agitatioti. The railway commissioners have found work for 100. The Wellington Naval Artillery ball is to come off oa the 27ch, and it is anticipated it will be a brilliant affair. The Special correspondent of the Melbourne Ags reports that almost all the iNevv Hebrides Islanders are antagonistic to French annexation.

Captain Edwin advised at noon yesterday that a change of weather may be expected from between the north and west, aud southwest, with a rising barometer—within twelve hours. The New South Wales Government have communicated with the Governments of the other colonies, asking them to join in taking a census of Australasia in the centennial year. The Mauawatu Times truthfully observes : —"Fahiatua lias been proclaimed a town district. In a year or so it will bo a borough, and after that will come the inevitable loans ami groans."

According to the news brought by IT.M.S. Opal, tho French troops persist quietly in their occupation of the New Hebrides, and there was not at the time the Opal left the slightest sign of the troops being removed. Captain Gilbert Mair has forwarded a " greeting to all the Maori people of Aotearou," in which the disasters attending the eruption are poetically described, and much sorrow is evinced for the unfortunate sufferers. The annual meeting of the shareholders in tho Wanganui Dairy Factory Company will be held on the 15th of next mouth, when the annual report will probably give a balance of £400 to the good on last season's working. The medical talk, which was to have been delivered at tho Young Men's Christian Association rooms last night by Dr. Challinor Purchae, was postponed ou account of the inclemency of the weather, but Mr. Hemery gave a brief address to those present. The gunboat Albatross, which is now in Sydney Harbour, was the vessel despatched to haul down the German flags in the Caroline Islands, in accordance with the demands of the Spanish Government, who had already taken possession of the group. A recovery in the price of fungus has recently been experienced, and quantities of this produce which had been kept back by the settlers for a rise are now being sent into New Plymouth and disposed of. One day during the present week no less than 95 bales of fungus were exported from New Plymouth. A Wellington paper says "In the vast stretch of country lying between Wellington and New Plymouth, and which will be brought into direct communication with this port uy the Manawatu Railway, fat stock to an almost unlimited extent can be raised all the year round without artificial feeding. Onoe the railway affords cheap access to a shipping port, Wellington will probably astonish the South by its export of frozen meat all the year round."