NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9150, 4 September 1888, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Bush land is in brisk demand on the West Coast. , , Not a paper in New Zealand has a good word to say for the late session. A good deal of destitution is said to prevail amongst the Dunedin unemployed. A new industry has been started at Dunedin, the pickling of white herrings. Twenty miners have left Cooktown for Sudest, New Guinea, on a prospecting tour. Mount Morgan shares are still rising. One thousand were sold at Rockhampton, recently, at £16 5s each for cash. The band at a Wanganui rink carnival struck the other evening, causing a complete failure in the evening's programme. A beautiful, though only small specimen of white quartz, thickly studded with gold, was one day last week picked up in the Waimakariri river-bed, at the head of Kaiapoi Island. The Union Company have made arrangements that excursionists from New Zealand to Melbourne shall enjoy the privilege of travelling to inland towns in Victoria at excursion rates. , u The Premier of New South Wales has granted £100 from the public funds towards the relief of about 100 Chinese, who were recently burnt out in the Chinese quarters at Waterloo, Sydney. The Ballarat brickmakers have gone out on strike because the contractors have refused to raise the rate of wages from Is 3d an hour to Is 4d, with suspension of work on Saturday at one o'clock. This item, under date August lSt.h, is pleasant reading : —" Broken Hill Proprietory Company. —\ield of silver this week is 5)0.5660z., representing a value of about £18,000. Monthly dividend payable 15th instant. Last quotation £266." The movement for annexation of Tasmania to Victoria has not so far received any countenance in Hobart. The grounds j of "the proposal are the general incompe- j tence of the Tasmanian legislators, and the j want of enterprise in the present state of affairs. A letter received from a friend in Sydney by a Wellington resident, states that the English footballers have taken the death of Mr!" Seddon, their late captain, so much to heart that he thinks they will be beaten in all the principal centres in New Zealand on their return. The proposed World's Carnival of aquatic sports, to be held in Brisbane in December, promises to be a great success. Subscriptions are coming in freely, and Kemp, Beach, Hanlan, and Xjilson have consented to row, provided all the competitors start from the same mark. A large number of horses about Brisbane have been suffering lately from a febrile disease known as pink-eye, which, although not often fatal, quite prostrates the animals attacked. The disease has been very general, and the Tramway Company have had as many as 60 horses down with it. The Otago Daily Times advocates the payment of "a Chief Railway Commissioner at £3000 a year, as a good man cannot be had for less*. It says "if the Government appoint a Board perpetuating the existing system they will bring a storm of popular indignation about their ears such as they have little idea of. Letters received from the Mackenzie Country state that the snow thereabouts has been dissolving rapidly under the influence of warm Nor'-west weather, and a good deal of " biack ground " is now visible. The station owners and managers say they can form no good idea of the extent of the loss of sheep till the mustering.