NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9144, 28 August 1888, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Whitebait are making their annual appearance in the Canterbury rivers. The new Wellington Opera House is to be lighted by electricity, if the expense be not too great. The Minerva Petroleum Company's bore, at Gisborne, was down 402 feet a few days ago, and all was going smoothly. The Woodville skating rink has been closed for want of patronage. The rinking craze would seem to be on the wane.

Most of the cabbages consumed in Hawke's Bay are grown by Chinese gardeners at the Hutt, near Wellington. It is now estimated that fully 50 per cent, of the sheep on the back country runs of Orago have been lost by the heavy falls of snow. . A coal boom appears to be setting in in New Zealand. The Nelson Land Board, at their last meeting had twenty-five applications for coal-prospecting licenses. The Parkville special settlement people are enterprising. They have just carried a. loan for £3000 for improvements in their block, through the Eketahuna Road Board. On Sunday evening a rubbishy heap at the premises of a woman named Vernor, in Wellesley-street, was discovered to be on fire. The flames were extinguished by a neighbour with a bucKet of water. A Christchurch firm have imported an automatic cigarette selling machine like those which are now so common in England which dispense a great variety of articles upon a penny being dropped into a slit. The efforts to form a company in Wellington to work the marble deposits at M itueka, have not been a success, and Mr. Henry Black has been despatched to Melbourne for the purpose of taking steps in that direction. Seventy-one working men have put their names down as willing to accept relief work at Woodville. Of this number it was not thought one-half would leave the town. Later news states that only four accepted the work. Rabbits in the Waiau country beyond Otautau, says an exchange, have lately been dying off by hundreds, being attacked by a disease which the rabbiters in the locality call scab, on account of its similarity to sheep scab. The Sandhurst School of Mines is the centre of the Mining system of Bendigo. In the School is to be found the information stored up by the experience of the world, and it is applied to the circumstance# of the surrounding country. The case of the man McDonald, who went out on the Port Hills, at Christchurch, to die of starvation, is strongly commented on by some Canterbury papers. Of course, says the Telegraph, no one is to blame, we are not our brother's keeper. The usual Gospel Temperance Meeting was held in the Protestant Hall, Karangahape Road, on Sunday evening, and was well attended. Mr. R. French presided. Mr. F. Renshaw gave an instructive address on the influence of alcohol upon the wilL A Napier builder went bankrupt the other day. He hail undertaken fifteen contracts for £11,835 6s 9d, and the work cost him £12,236 ISs 4d. One of them, a residence, cost him £1326 10s 3d to execute, while the amount of his tender was only £97$ Ss "2d, over 30 per cent. less. A correspondent of an exchange, writing about Sandhurst, says : —" The machinery in the place is so powerful and so perfect, that it is capable of paying a profit on stone of not more than four pennyweight quality, handsome enough to find money for improving the mine, as well as for dividends to the shareholders."

According to what should be a trustworthy authority, there are in New Zealand over 20,000 people known to be victimising the business community of the colony. Their names are recorded in a black list. How many others are there who are unknown save to their victims? It is no wonder there are so many bankrupts, A Lake County correspondent says that the quantity of snow which has fallen is immense. At present it is hard held by frost, but when a thaw comes there must be a gigantic flood in the Molyneux and its tributaries. Lake Wakatipu, he states, is very low, and the tributary streams almost dry from the frost binding up the snow. A correspondent of a Wairarapa paper gays : "Jonathan Roberts got off on board of" a vessel bound for Peru, which sailed from Lyttelton about six weeks ago. He had a brother working on one of the stations here, who drew a big chequeover £60 1 believe—went off to the South .Island and secured a passage as stated for Jonathan."

Thousands (says an exchange) have laughed over Dickens' creation of the airy and' harmless devotee to the enthralling seductiveness of King Charles' head, but it begins to look as if Mr. Verrall only needs sufficiently publicity to be as widely known for his homage to that modern wizard State Bank, Esquire, universal regenerator of decayed peoples. An exchange states that a man working in the bush near Eketahuna cut one of his big toes off on Monday whilst bush-felling. He was by himself, and after binding the wound up, he started with the aid of two sticks for the township. On his way out he ■was met by two men, who wanted to know what was the matter, when the injured man coolly put his hand into his vest pocket and produced the toe. The following is the state of Her Majesty's prison, Auckland, for the week ending Aug. :15th, 1888 —On remand, 1 male, I female ; awaiting trial, 7 males ; boys,4 ; penal servitude, 42 males, 3 females ; hard labour, 103 males, '24 females ; imprisonment, 1 male; default of bail, 7 males ; debtor, 1 male ; received during the week, 18 males, 5 females; discharged, 22 males, 2 females; total in prison : 166 males, 28 females.