NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9140, 23 August 1888, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

yip.. H. H. Adams, of Waiorongomai, has jeen very ill lately. Mr. Vincent Pyke says the Ministers are a set of plausible political tricksters. The Herd Laddie left Christchurch for Melbourne the other day, to play the Exhibition crowd.

It is said that Woodville is to be made the central stopping station of the Welling-ton-Napier line when finished. Mr. A. Lockwood, of Paeroa, has gone to Sydney at the invitation of a syndicate, to introduce his new process for gold saving. The silver lodes in the Owen district are again attracting attention, and one enthusiastic miner says they will yet rival Broken Hill.

The bank deposits for the year are a great centennial fact. The deposits for Australasia have run up to the enormous sum of £100,000,000. The banks have assets in the colonies to the amount of £145,000,000, and before the year is out the total will probably be £150,000,000. The plant and machinery for a starch manufactory, to be established in the neighbourhood of Ashburton, have been ordered from home. A movement has been made by some ladies in the north end of Dunedin to collect funds for a presentation to Bishop Neville on his return from England. ■ The Board of Governors of the Christchurch Public Library have decided to offer a reward of £10 for the conviction of any person caught stealing or mutilating the books. At the Columbia Rink they are trying to teach a real live donkey to skate, Special skates have been made for this latest " skatcrial artist," who will appear in public shortly. The Christchurch Press believes in Burke's "Colonial Gentry." It says that the work will be a very valuable social histoiy, and we may safely assist him in bringing it to a successful issue. The Manaia dairy factory have sold a lot of cheese to an Auckland firm at 4*d per lb. This is equal to 3Jd at the factory, which leaves a fair profit, to the management on the cost of manufacture. Mr. J. Lawn, who is engaged developing the property of the Midland Antimony Company, has traced the antimony lode past the supposed " fault," and is now driving on a splendid lode of ore, solid and well formed. It is reported (says an exchange) that the Maori tribe who own some healing hoc springs at Rotorua, have spent over £10 on a CAble message to Queen "Victoria, inviting her to come out and bathe her afflicted leg in the curative waters of New Zealand. | A very distinct shock of earthquake was experienced at Te Aroha on Tuesday forenoon at a quarter to eleven o'clock. The strange sensation was accompanied by a •light- rumbling noise, but the effect was only experienced for a couple of seconds. The electric light at Reefton is being let out to the inhabitants at the rate of 2d per light per night. The bulk of the consumers irf the town are shareholders in the company, and the price is ultimately to be reduced as low as consistent with paying reasonable interest on the capital invested. At the Resident Magistrate's Court, Christchurch, lately, a lad of twelve pleaded guilty to stealing 7s from a shopkeeper's till to go rinking with. The presiding magistrate said that "rinking seems to be demoralising the whole community. " It is said that- the hawks have been very destructive in the Waihou district latelymany young lambs having been carried off by them. The settlers are taking every step to rid the district of the pest, and numbers have already been destroyed by poison. A Ciiristohurch paper says :—lt is asserted that some parties of miners on Tucker and Constitution Flats are making as much as £9 per week per man ; we also know alluvial miners in other parts of the West Coast who are making £20 per week per man. The rabbits (the Taieri paper says) have had a bad time during the floods. Large numbers have been drowned on the low parts of the plain, and on the hills where the water found its way into the burrows "boys have been hunting, and have secured hundreds of victim?. Down near Meadowbank rabbits and rats were to be seen " roosting" in the hedges. Mr. Seddon (says a Southern paper) desires to remove a false impression which had been spread abroad, that every ounce of gold costs double its value to get. How can that be when we consider that New Zealand has produced gold to che value of 44.000,000 sovereigns? and if it cost double Vts value, where did the £88,000,000 come jrom ? Mr. C. C. Corfe, the well-known headmaster of Christ's College, Christchurch, has received notice of dismissal from the governing body, their reason being that " they believe that a period of fourteen or fifteen years is long enough for the best qualified man to hold such an appointment." Great regret is expressed at this, is it is stated that Mr. Corfe has made the school the best in the colony.