NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8524, 26 March 1891, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A. Mastekton" boy, playing with a tomahawk, accidentally chopped two of his sister's fingers off the other day. The comic opera " Patience" is to be produced atTaranaki, by local amateurs during the Jubilee celebration next week. A boy named George Ellridge, aged 11 years, was drowned in the Parramatta River, Sydney, last week, while catching prawns. A boat capsized in Newcastle harbour recently. Five young men who had been in her clung to the up-turned boat till rescued. At the last regular meeting of the Otago Education Board there were nineteen vacancies tor pupil teachers, and over 3.30 applicants. Tie Colonial Sugar Refining Company have purchased for £20,000 the engineering work ? and patent slip of Messrs. Davy aud Sandts Fyrmont. Pilot Thompson, of Albany, Western Australia, while engaged taking the barque Mary Stewart to sea recently, fell between the vessel and the steam launch, and was crushed to death. A woman named Rose Hurst died at Perth, Western Australia, recently from the effects of carbolic acid, which she drank while intoxicated, under the impression that it was porter. A number of section? sold some time ago by the Manawatu Railway Company at Fitzherbert on deferred payments at £1 an acre, have recently been quitted at prices ranging up to 34s an acre. According to a return furnished by Mr. Havter. the private wealth of Victoria exceeds that, of New South Wales, the former, according to his calculation, averaging £399 per head, and the latter only £319 per head. The Gisborne Standard states :—lt is now public property that a warrant been out for the arre«t of A. W. Croft, formerly Deputy Official Assignee at Gisborne. The alleged defalcations amount to over £600. , , , , ~ The Methodist Conference of Adelaide has unanimously paired a resolution strongly protesting against the action of the Government in declaring Cup Day a public holiday, and expre&?inir it* earnest opposition to "the fostering of the gambling P on the arrival of the Monowai at Sydney it was found that several of the mail bags were damaged by water, owing to a heavy sea breaking on board on February 25th, and bursting the ventilators, etc., of the mail loom. A Gisborne paper says : — Operations at the Taranaki oil well have been suspended for some time for want of a special rope. This is just what Gisborne people have been expecting. In Gisborne a special rope was badly wanted, but it wrasn'6 for the oil works themselves. A single woman named Julia McCarthy has been arrested at the Women's Hospital, Melbourne, charged with the murder of her infant, which was born seven days ago in the institution. There was a lacerated wound around the child's neck, caused by the strings of the nightdress having been drawn tightly and twisted, causing strangulation. As a train was passing the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the other day, a man threw himself on the line just in front the engine, and before the driver could pull up, the train had crushed his head. The man proved to be John Dunn, aged 24. In his pocket was a scrap of paper, on which was written, "Goodbye to the world ; I am lull of it."