NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9187, 17 October 1888, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Ironworks are being again started in Taranaki. A 171b eel was caught in the Avon at Christchurch recently. _ ! - Wild dogs are causing great trouble in the Masterton district. j The Melbourne Exhibition is at length i assuming a finished appearance. j Five hundred and twelve persons are on i the Christchurch charitable aid list. An exchange warns fruitgrowers that the codlin moth will soon be about again. j There were last evening in the lock-up j two persons on charges of drunkenness. Mr. Greville Smith, late of Auckland, is now on the permanent staff of the Melbourne Herald. New Zealand shipping shares are being quoted in Wellington at £1 2s 6d a share, j £7 or £S paid up. i Mr. Thomas Bracken has been appointed ! resident secretary of the National Mutual | Life Association for the provincial district , of Otago. . j The retirement of Mr. Blackett is spoken j of in Wellington, and Mr. C. Y. O'Connor j is mentioned as a possible commissioner of j railways. . ( A Southern paper says that the Gaiety , Burlesque Company, when they touched at | Auckland, were "taken up the inevitable. Mount Eden." The Lyttelton Times recently had a j paragraph about a big hen's egir. It has j now discovered a small one, the size of a J sparrow's egg. 1 A man named William Mackay was i arrested by Detective Hughes yesterday on : a charge of stealing a pair of blinkers, tho ■ property of Joseph Redshaw. A 11 cation appear* in another column j that the Baden Marine Insurance Company j (Limited) proposes to cany on business in i Auckland, and that its office will be situate in Elliott-street. The Victorian Government have been asked to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the system of crimping practised at Port Melbourne. It is proposed to light Christchurch by electricity, power being supplied by the River Avon. It is estimated that the saving will amount to £1500 a year. Mr. Joseph Exall, one of the oldest journalists connected with the New Zealand Press, died the other day, at the age of 70, at his residence in Christchurch. The Local Preachers" Association discuss fthe question of the Second Advent of our Lord, this evening, at the Pitt'.- street Church. This is not a public meeting. So successful has tree-planting been in South Australia that Mr. Bailey, Colonial Botanist of Queensland, is visiting the «olony in order to make himself acquainted ivith the system of forestry. A Timaru paper says: "A quantity of mullet have been hooked from the breakwater during the last day or two. As the warm weather is setting in, the fish begin to bite freely." Auckland mullet cannot be IB light so. We <:o from home to hear news. Mr. John Rae, who writes in the August number of the Contemporary on "State Socialism,"' makes the assertion that New Zealand has a Government fire insurance department ! The Wanganui Herald, in an article cautioning people against going to the llahakipawa rush, quotes a very sensible remark made by the late Mr. Macandrew, "that of all thegoldfields he had ever seen, there was none to compare with the field of golden srrain.' . The Otago Daily Times learns that Mr. B. Hallenstein has'.-old the linseed oil mills, until lately carried on by him in conjunction with" Mr. Fred Singer, to Messrs. Kempt home. Prosper, and Co., who propose to carry on the manufacture of oil, cake, A.C.. on a large scale. By the Wairarapa yesterday there went away 103 steerage passengers from Auckland, anci five from the South ; 25 saloon passengers from Auckland, and 22 from the South.' A large number of these are excursionists, even among the steerage. The uxorius i? evidently decreasing. " Puff," in the Wellington Press, says the New Zealand Shipping Company, are going In for severe retrenchment. When the •ships are in port, the new rule i≤ that for every visitor who dines or lunches at the -""?bin table, half-a-crown is clocked off the ' :*v of the officer who asks him. I'ioi'e famine.- ! Says Puff, the Nile is abnormally low, and there are fears of a famine in Up:>er Egypt : Ahah ! That raiher awkward in October! If the Nile doesn't rise soon, there'll be no corn in Egypt : Already, I see, New Zealand wheal's up to 435, and it seems to be going up, up. up ! We learn (says the Christchurch Press) that youns , Moor has been presented with a very nice morocco bound Bible and Prayer Book, in recognition of his pluck in saving a little girl front drowning. The present was contributed by residents in the vicinity of the tank from which young Moor extricated the maiden.

It is stated in a Southern paper that Mr. Brown, assisted by the Hon. W. J. M. Larnach ana Sir Robert Stout (wno is at present in Melbourne), and other gentlemen of standing ir commercial circie?, is trying to float a. curnpany to work the extensive coai deposit at Kaitangata, which covers an area oi I'XK) acres.

It is reported, says a contemporary, that a special settlement for New Zealand escaped prisoners is to be formed either in Australia or San Francisco. Jonathan Roberts is to be president and Rudolph Rndka secretary. It i≤ proposed to employ discharged gaolers and ex-detectives as farm hands on the settlement.

An exchange has the following : —" Fried sparrow is good eating, 1 tell you," says a Wellington business man. " ! I have a neighbour who shoots sparrows with an air gun. He dresses the birds, and then fries them as you would a spring chicken. The fiesh is firm, yec tender and sweet. I don'r, ask anything- better for breakfast than a plate of fried, sparrows." An importer writes to the Wellington Post complaining about the extraordinary way in wnich the ahaw, Saville Company are treating their customers. He says : — •• The Doric has been fooling from one end of the colony to the other for the last twelve days, passing Wellington in that time, and now we are coolly informed that her carcro will not be here till the 11th." The following is the state of Her Majesty's prison, Auckland, for the week ending Oct. 13th : On remand, 1 female ; awaiting trial, 4 males ; boys, 5 ; penal servitude, 42 males, 3 females ; "hard labour, 106 males, 15 females ; imprisonment, 1 male; default of bail, 5 males; received during the week, 17 males, 5 females ; discharged, 15 males, 5 females; total in prison: 163 males, 19 females.