NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9096, 3 July 1888, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Some sailors at Oamaru are testing the power of oil in calming the waves. A Canterbury .farmer while threshing lately unearthed a nest of white mice. State baby-farming is what a Southern paper calls our present system of education. _ There were 208 births in the colony during the month of May, against 246 m A The Christchurch Press says the Greenwood family are going to Europe when they have finished their Sydney concerts. The subject of immorality in the public ' schools has been brought under the notice of the Wellington Board of Education. Owing to a rise in price, " fundus gathering is paving well just now in the Taranaki and Manawatu districts, the Maoris being specially busy. Two of the jam-makers of the colony are trvino- to boil each other down,and accusing each "other of using fruit pulp from Tasmania, . and also fruit preserved by the "sulph>irous acid process." ' Commenting on Mr. Maxwell, the Railway Manager, the Post says "We have never heard him even accused of showing a willingness to oblige anybody, or to prefer anybody's opinion to his own." The Arawa is taking Home three Keas. A fourth was to have been sent, but he was eaten by his comrades. By the tiime the survivor of this consignment reaches Eng- ~ land he will be able to sing W. S. Gilbert's « Song of the Nancy Brig.' < " Raspberry Syrup," says a correspondent of the Wellington Press, is made of glucose, oil of raspberries, fuchsin, sulphuric acid, saccharine, and salicylic acid. Oil of raspberry is a chemical made from a very nasty source. _ Every New Zealand town lias a burning question. Wellington, wind ; Christchurch, flatness; Dunedin, rain and Scotchmen; Auckland, muwginess; Blenheim, co-oper-ative drain. This paragraph bears internal evidence of its birthplace. The visitors from New Zealand to the Wesleyan Conference in Melbourne were very liberally treated by the railway authorities of New South Wales and Victoria. They were granted " visitors' free passes" over the railways of both colonies. We (Dunedin Herald) understand that the chief warders at any rate in our colonial ' gaols are henceforth to wear swords. It would be difficult to invent a weapon more latterly unsuited to the use of warders than a three-foot sword. Only the very genius of militarism could have suggested such an absurdity. •. The Board of Governors of the Canterbury Agricultural College have decided not to pay for any labour done by the students • after the end of the year. At present they • are paid from 3d to 6d an hour, and industrious students can earn from £5 to £10 a quarter provided it does not all disappear in fines for misbehaviour. " Rabbit grass " is a new pest) which is sausing anxiety in the Waitaki Valley in Dtago. It is worthless for stock, and is rapidly displacing the natural pastures, the havoc it has wrought, in conjunction with the rabbit plague, is observable in the ,facb that the number of sheep has _ been reduced by one-third, and the condition of the remainder damaged 50 per cent. > There are few young New Zealandera (says the Wellington Press) of whom the - colony has better reason to be proud than it has of Dr. Albert Martin, son of the Honourable John Martin, M.L.C. ; and a general feeling of satisfaction has been caused by the doctor determining to settle and practice in his native city of Wellington. The Christchurch Telegraph prophesies jr that the rinking craze will soon collapse, and thab there will be plenty of second-hand roller skates in the market before many months are passed! away. In Wellington the mania seems to have broken out more virulently than ever. The reports speak of crammed" attendances and "tumultuous ; ' applause. A Southern paper, speaking of Hansard, says : —" The reporting this session has been the worst ever known, and members • are bitterly complaining of the trouble to which they are pub in correcting. It has taken a number .of them (including Sir George Grey, who should be very easily reported) several hodrs to correct their speeches." Another paper says it is the fault of the members, who do not wish what they said to. be reported, but what they wish their constituents to think they said.