NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9143, 27 August 1888, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The present is the coldest season that has Deen known in Tasmania for! seven years. Mrs. William Rattenburg, of Tempe, Cook's River, Queensland, has had " quadruplets." Mr. J. A. Pond, of Auckland, has made application for a licensed holding of 25 acres at Tui Creek. A company has been formed in Christchurch to work the Owen silver reef. The shares are at a premium. Returns from Queensland show that the total gold yield for the half-year, including alluvial, was 223,8400z. The leading railway contractors of Victoria have resolved that the standard rate of pay for navvies shall be 7s per day. A Canterbury paper says the extremely novel sight of a cow acting as foster mother to a foal may be seen at Kirbymoorside. The Hon. S. W. Baker, Premier of Tonga, and his private secretary, Mr. S. Baker, left in the Richmond for Tonga on Saturday. . A splendid supply of fresh water, struck at Mount Margaret, Thargomindah (Q.), has caused a great deal of excitement in the district. . . The word "Colony"' is beginning to jar on the nerves of Victorians. They would prefer to say " State," " nation," or, better still, '' Empire." The "swagger" tribe have increased lately to a great extent in the North Wairarapa district. At some stations as many as 100 a month have been supplied with free meals. Mr. Abigail is giving attention to proposed assay works in connection with the New South Wales Department of Mines, and an expert will probably be engaged from America. Mr. Elder, of North Wairarapa, says an exchange, is procuring nine shearing machines for this season : also a four-horse power engine to drive them. The machines will cost £10 each. The financial prosperity of the New South Wales Typographical Association was reported to be eminently satisfactory, their assets being £1144, an increase on last halfyear's assets of £204. " We cannot pretend to call the Public Works Stattment satisfactory," says the Lyttelton Times, then it denounces "the notorious Otago Central," and urges that the Manawatu Gorge Railway should be pushed on. The Queensland Government is to be asked to offer a bonus of £5000 for the first 5000 yards of cotton goods manufactured in the colony, and a 5000-acre grant of land when the factory has been in operation three years. Werner Siemens, of 94, Markgrafen Strasse, Berlin (Germany), the distinguished scientist, has deposited at the Wellington Patent Office specifications of an invention for improvement in the extraction of gold and other precious metals from minerals and ores containing them. The latest political intelligence, according to the Press, is that on the next sitting day, Mr. Seddon will ask the Minister of Education "if a hen and a haif lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many eo-o-s will six hens lay in seven days 1" llie Cabinet is said to be divided on the subject. The Press, commenting on the question of a site for the newly-imported rubbish destructor, describes the members of the Wellington City Council as of "the third sex," and says that " there is not a borough in New Zealand where municipal government is such a contemptible farce as it is in Wellington." The carpenters of Melbourne have commenced an agitation for a reduction in the hours of labour. At present they work 48 hours per week, Their programme now is "That 44 hours shall constitute a week's work, and the wages to be Is 4id per hour ; overtime to be paid at the rate of—first two hours, time and a-half; after that, double time." Many Southern papers are severe on Sir Wm. Fox for his sentences on drunkards. One paper says that such people are no more to be trusted on such occasions than "cranks," and declares that no one has done more harm to the temperance cause than Sir William Fox, New Zealand's great champion of temperance, whose bitterness has disgusted multitudes of people. Despite the outcry against the San Fran- j cisco service, it has its advantages (says the Lyttelton Times). An instance of rapid letter-delivery may be noted. A letter posted in Christchurcb on May 30 went home in the Kaikoura, to which a reply was yesterday received via San Francisco. The exact time occupied in the transit of the two letters, including that necessary for writing the reply, was therefore exactly eighty days.