NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9126, 7 August 1888, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Bat of Islands Coal Compaq dividend o salmon trout was netted off the Timaru beach recently. . . A great many Aucklanders about to visit the Melbourne Exhibition. Ask'nam • Mollov pans at the Thames ■working very satisfactorily. Up to August 2 about 3000 Kauri Timber shares were applied for in Christ-church. A company is being projected in Melbourne to supply a real ice-floor skating rink. A Chinese firm in Palmerston a week or two agb sent away about six tons of dried fungus. Another mining swindle, based on a show of specimens, was recently perpetrated in Melbourne. ... Melbourne investors debit Broken xiui Marototo affair against Auckland, instead of against Sydney. The bore of the Minerva Petroleum ompany at Gisborne is now down 200 feet, and an 8-inch pipe is being inserted. Thousands are crowding into Melbourne to see the Exhibition, and the land and property boom continues as fast and furious a$ ever. _ . The Rev. Mr. Wills, of Opotiki, on one Sunday evening lately, during his sermon, recited 4 4 The Charge of the Light brigade." . . , A Waipawa brahma is credited with having the other day laid an egg weighing just on four ounces, measuring 6j inches one vrav, and 7f the other. Mr. D. J. McLeod, who is about to leave this city for Melbourne, will be banquetted at the Northern Club, and receive a presentation at the Auckland Club. Mr. J. H. Witheford has hoisted the New Zealand flag in Collins-street, Melbourne, near the Exchange, where he has taken an office in connection with Auckland mining. A polo match at the Eureka bleating Rink, Newton, yesterday evening, was won bv a team from that rink, who beat their opponents, p'avers representing the Columbia. bv eleven points to three. The" O;«otiki Herald says that it has cost the Count Council of that district £163 to spend £ 153. The Highway Board during the same period have expended i.o, and it has cost them £53 lis S.i to do so. It is stated that by the time the next fruit season has arrived a gentleman will have visited the Australian colonies with the object of purchasing colonial fruit for introduction into the English market. Sir Robert Stout, in a letter to the Dunedin Evening Star, asserts that by not adopting the policy of the Stout-Vogel Government- the colony has lost hundreds of thousands of pounds, and thousands of settlers. New Zealand is generally regarded as the black sheep of the colonies as regards unprofitable railways, but we are angels to the * Tasmanians. "Their railways do not return 1 per cent, on the cost of construction. In Adelaide several serious accidents have occurred at the skating rinks. In one case an unfortunate girl wore in her hat a large steel pin, which, when she fell, was driven into her skull with such force as to penetrate the brain. Thus the Hawkes Bay Herald: "The poorest- working man in this country is contributing his share towards the cost of the ghastly fooling that- is now going on in the House"of Mi-representatives. There is a big moral in the fact for those who care to find i*. A Dunedin writer say* there is a bit of a scare down there about the rocks tumbling down on the railway at Purakanui. He mention® that Hans the Boatman Company went from Dune-din to Oamaru by steamer to avoid the cliffs, and were afterwards Dumped off the rails at the Hook by a cow. The Dunedin Star thinks that the stonewallers of the Otago Central have some dark end to serve. They could not possibly have stonewalled the Bill in the interests of the colony. An exception is made of Sir George Grev. he " being an amiable monomaniac in respect to his interest in posterity."