NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9141, 24 August 1888, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

It has {been raining continuously for four weeks at Masterton. Mutton hams are being sold in Christchurch just now at 4d per lb. Numbers of disappointed diggers are returning from the Mahakipawa goldfield, near Picton.

In the lock-up last night there was one man for drunkenness,,and a woman named Mahoney on a charge of arson. From latest advices there appears every prospect of the Midland railway, Western Australia, being commenced at an early date.

Matthew Burnett, the blue ribbon worker, is now at Hamilton, New South Wales. Ninety pledges is his latest record for a night. The late manager of the Wellington Branch of the Columbia Skating Rink is now a "gentlemanly attache" to a Melbourne rink. Rabbits are reported to be on the increase in the Meninda district (N.S.W.) No less than 82,000 were destroyed on one ' station last month. The total value of imports at the port of * Sydney for the v-eek ending Ausrust 4 amounts to £290,992. The total value of exports for the same period amounts to £118,493. - r., o J At the half-yearly meeting of the Sydney Meat Preserving Company, it was reported that the expenditure had exceeded the income by £4637. The company had closed the works for a time. Some larrikins fastened up the doors and windows of "a skating rink near Kaiapoi with wire, thus holding the rinkers prisoners for a considerable time. Four of the offenders were arrested. The Wellington Amateur s Opera Society hope to be able to borrow the dresses and scenery used by the Christchurch Society for the production of the " Mikado" for the performance of the same play in Wellington. . In connection with the case against the Rev. J. M. Donaldson, at Adelaide, an injunction has been served upon Dean Marryat and others, restraining them from proceeding under any inquiry in the charge against Mr. Donaldson. Sir Henry Loch claims that the Melbourne Exhibition is so far a complete success, not only from the number and value of the exhibits and from what might be learned from them, but also from the number of persons who have already visited the place. The following sections of land in the province of Auckland have been temporarily reserved for the purpose stated : —Section No. 241, parish of Mangawai, containing by admeasurement 10 acres, for a school site ; sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 13, 14, 15, and 16, of block 15 town of Te Aroha, block 9 Te Aroha survey district, containing 2 acres, for a gravel reserve ; section 270, parish of Te Papa, Tauranga County, containing 23 acres, for acclimatisation purposes ; section 6A of block 11, Takahue survey district, containing 5 acres, as a site for a cemetery.