NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9125, 6 August 1888, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The Christchurch volunteers are arrang. ing to have a night alarm. The Mangere bridge will be closed from Monday tilf Thursday next. In a leader on " Cow's Grease," the Wellington Press urges that there should be an official testing and branding of butter afe the ports of export. At Eketahuna, a correspondent of a Southern paper says, there are four hotels and a population of about 100 adults, 40 of whom are teetotallers. There were two persons in the lock-up fast evening—a case of drunkenness, and a man named Pollock for assaulting a seaman named Mudock on the Borealis. The result of the local option poll at Makikihi, Canterbury, recently was a block vote against increases. Only two voters turned up, and one voted informally. The skeleton of a monster shark caught recently is being exhibited in Wellington. It is I(s* foot 6 inches long, and it is said to be the largest ever captured on the coast. Its teeth were 2 inches in length. The Premier retnarkod, in the House, that anyone who read Mr. Ritchie's Local Government Bill must see that the English Government were very much indebted to New Zealand for the main provisions of the Bill. The manufacture of "furs' (making-up and dyeing rabbit-skins) has been started in Wellington. The product is said to bo better than the imported article, as the skins used have nob been injured by a long voyage. The patent fire-kindler invented by Mr. Wait*, of High-street, Auckland, is becoming widely known throughout the colonies. He has just received an order by cable for four thousand to be forwarded to Melbourne. Saturday was the last day for receiving applications for shares in the Kauri Timber Company, but as a number of applications are expected by post from the South to-day, the full amount of shares applied for is not yet known. An exchangeobserves that not the slightest harm would result if the Education Department at Wellington were swept away, and the money voted to the Boards on the basis of average attendance in the schools within the several districts. Some miners are doing very well at the Mahakipawa alluvial diggings, ne<u - Havelock. As much as 20ozs were sold by one party, and some fine nuggets ranging from one "ounce up to eleven ounces have been found. The locality is in a creek where the sun never shinesLovers of good beer (says a contemoorary) will be glad to learn that under the new tariff it will not pay to use glucose any longer for brewing, and if the old English Ace" against adulterating Deer with sugar were adopted in this colony, Xew Zealand ales would soon become celebrated all over the world.

At Papakura, on Friday last, a little girl four year? of age, named Lizzie Laffety, was severely burnt. Some fallen bush was being burnt off. and a spark ignited her clothes. The flames were promptly put out. and the child was brought down to the Hospital, where she is now progressing favourably. The steamship Taiyuan, which leave* Wellington in a few days for China, takes forty-seven Chinamen from Dunedin, and seven from Lyttelton, returning to the Flowery. Land". She takes others from Wellington, and it is anticipated that when she leaves New Zealand she will have over one hundred. A correspondent of a New Plymouth paper, describing the Auckland Free Library, says: —"The news-room, which occupies the basement story, is a clean and commodious, but not very cheerful-looking room, rather, indeed, resembling a huge concrete water cistern emptied, and turned upside down." Scots Church, Melbourne, has got hold of another heretic who outrivals the Rev. C. StronEr, and is quit* as bad as Dr. Salmond. The ftev. Alex. Marshall has intimated in a sermon that he dosen'b believe in a material hell, and that he does believe in ultimate universal salvation. Hβ will probably be asked to explain. Mr. William Smith, of Taranaki-street, who is himself a Chinaman, has addressed a letter to the Wellington Post urging the severe repression of gambling at fan-tan and other similar games, which, he regrets to sa}-, prevails so largely amongst his countrymen. Several of them, he says, have lost all they possessed, and have almost been driven mad.