NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8488, 12 February 1891, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Last three nights of Phonograph. . _ • A steady downpour of rain set in last evening. , , , I Miss Janet Achurch and her company are in Brisbane. The estimated population of the city of Goulburn is 11,205, The Christian Brothers are about to open a college at Dunedin. ; Pleuro-pneumonift is said to be very prevalent among the herds in Victoria. Whitford Park races to-day, unless they are postponed on account of the weather. All traces of phylloxera are reported to have been stamped out in Njw South Wales. ~, , . A movement is on foot to establish a grain and dairy produce export company in Wellington. ' Professor Carrollo states that he has 110 intention of starting swimming classes at present. The loss in grass-seed has been very severe at Woodville this season, owing to the rain. , , Gold to the value of £54,43S was exported from New South Wales during the month of January. _ A Banco sitting of the Supreme Court ■will be held to-morrow, after Chamber business is disposed of. Some of the fallow-deer let loose in the Wanganui district some time ago, are still in existence and doing well. H.M.S. Dart is off the coast of Victoria, searching for the sunken rock, on which the Carlisle was wrecked last year. Yesterday evening Mr. C. A. Longfellow, son of the famous American poet, was a passenger for Samoa by the W ainui. The members of the Auckland Operative Bootmakers' Uuion have voted £20 towards the lluutly Disaster Fund. It is feared that the disease known as <f pink-eye" in horses has broken out in the Windsor district, Isew South Wales. The revenue collected last month in New South Wales exceeds by £75,93S the revenue collected in the same month in 1890. English Masons are much scandalised at the introduction •of the sable pugilist Jackson into the General Gordon Lodge at Svduey. "Professor Archibald says that if he went in for learning shorthand it would be in the belief that the phonograph would soon do away with the use of the art. The date for the opening of the exhibition of the Auckland Society of Arts will not be fixed until the arrival in Auckland of His Excellency the Governor. The Taranaki Herald srives currency to a report that Mr. R. Bullen, ex-Inspector of Police, has made a sum of £10,000 through speculating in silver shares in Australia. A stamp, which had evidently dropped from a letter in the Post Otiiee, was found beneath the wrapper of one of the Herald exchanges yesterday. So much for gum ! A member of the literary staff of the Hawke's Bay Herald, Mr. E. Cowan, recently severely injured the tendons of one foot, and had to stay at the Hospital for treatment.

A Rangitikei contractor mixed his correspondence the other day, and the County Council got a letter to his wife, marked '"Tender for , and commencing, " Dear Annie."

The following prisoners were in the lockup last evening l , namely, three persons on charges of drunkenness, Charles Robertson for being drunk and disorderly, and a • girl for larceny. A snake recently found near Catlins River has been pronounced to be a specimen of the pelamis, or harmless water snake. It is believed to have drifted to the New Zealand coast.

. A banquet was given in Melbourne-on the 2nd instant, at the German Club, by the Consul for Austria-Hungary (Mr. M. Pinchoff), as a welcome to the officers of the Austrian man-of-war Saida.

The ship Opawa has brought out for the Cbristchurch School of Art some life-sized statues as models for the students. There are also models for architectural ornamentation and for decorative work. There was an usually large percentage of failures in the recent matriculation examination in Dunedin, and the Times raises the question as to how much the alleged geography paper had to do with the result. The duties of Resident Magistrate at Kaiapoi" have been assumed by .Mr. Alfred Greenfield, Commissioner of Crown Lands, Nelson, and R.M. at Collingwood. during the temporary absence of Mr. Caleb White* foord. This is the choice language in which one New Zealand paper refers to a contemporary -.—"Luckily, however, it is a perfectly harmless reptile, and sensible people will not pay any attention to its latest outpouring of impotent wrath." A man at Danevirke, not having the money to pay for a railway ride to Napier, by some means got into the Danevirke Station and stole the necessary ticket. Ho then "fnked" the official stamp upon it. He got six months' hard labour. Regarding Macpherson's great performance in the 250 yards flat championship on the 6rh inst., when he beat the world's record, the Christchurch Press say 3 :—Macpherson's time of 2-4 l-10th sec. for the 250 yards appears incredible (private telegram gave it as 24 3-10 th sec.), and as the report says the pistol hung fire, the bungle at the start probably resulted in the men beating the watch-holders. During the voyage of the ship Persian Empire, which arrived last - night from London, a seaman named Stephen Jelliss was lost in the Bay of Biscay on the 12th of November, while another sailor, George Crusei, died on January 21. The steward of the ship,' Robert Neville, had his leg broken on Tuesday last. In an address to the people of St. Matthew's Anglican Parish, Dunedin, Canon Howell, the newly-appointed incumbent, said ho did not believe in their State education. He did not believe in the three Ks only. He did not believe that the Sts-te school system, with the three R's, woiild'ever make men and women of their children. He wanted to make Churchmen and Churchwomen of them, and wanted to make, them feel there was a higher life. He wanted to teach children who came under his care that they had got a God in heaven, and not what the State school taught them—utter worldliness._ If he could hear of a good master or mistress he ■would open a school at'once.