NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8534, 7 April 1891, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

lotlcjenza has reappeared in Oamara. The census papers were being collected yesterday. The Wairoa bar, Hawked Bay, is completely blocked up. The Auckland bootmakers' grievances are still unsettled. The football clubs are making preparations for the coming season. It is stated that 140 leading residents of the colony are to be prosecuted for dummyism. In six years twenty-eight Roman Catholic schools have been opened in Sydney and suburbs. The postal and telegraphic revenues for the year will realise the treasurer Mr. J. P. E. Francis, of >be Auckland College and Grammar School, died yesterday morning. A pumpkin was exhibited at the Mofcueka show, Nelson, recently, which turned the scale at 1241b5. The collection at St. Barnabas' Church, Mount Eden, for the Home Mission Fund was £11 4s 6d. - The capital of the New Alburnia Gold Mining Company is to be increased by the issue of 30,000 new shares. Samuel Porter, licensee of the Britannia Hotel, Dunedin, and formerly a policeman, died suddenly from apoplexy. The turnip crops in North Otago, which . promised well about a month ago, are suffering greatly from want of rain. A convention of delegates from 59 lodges of Good Templars was held at Nelson last week. The meeting lasted three days. During the recent Jubilee celebrations at Taranaki the takings of the Athletic Club amounted to over £400 for two days' sport. The railway to Middlemarch, on the Otago Central line, will be handed over to the Railway Commissioners on the 9th instant. The sudden demise of a number of valuable fowls at Danevirke has convinced residents that Wairarapa weasels hare found their way to that part. For carrying passengers in excess of his certificate the "master of the Dunedin ferry steamer Onslow was fined 10s, and a penny per head on 120 excess passengers. Owing to the increase of and damage done by the kea, the Selwyn Counctl intend trying to have the bird placed in the category of nuisances and liable to destruction.

During the last four months vegetables to the value of about £60 have been grown at the Costley Home, and have been supplied to the inmates of that institution and those of the Hospital. The Hon. K. J. Seddon arrived in Christchurch yesterday, and by special request of the Premier officially represented the Government at the Hon. W. Reeves' funeral in the afternoon. The Christchurch r City Council last night received a proposal from the representative of the Gulcher Company to light the city with electric light, and referred it to the Lighting Committee. Ail the members of the Executive of the Railway Society, and three-fourths of the men who were dismissed at Christchurch and Westport during the strike, have been re-engaged in the railway service. The balance-sheet of the recent dairymen's picnic was presented last night at a meeting in the Foresters' Hall, and showed a credit balance of £5 Ss. The prizes won at the picnic sports were distributed. While the weather has been moist in the North Island, it must have been very dry in the South. The hills about Nelson are quite brown, and the grass has a burnt-up appearance. Taranaki, on the other hand, looks green. At the Dtmedin Educational Institute, in reference to the New Zealand Herald article on education, it was stated in discussion that they would have taken no notice of the article if it had not been for the Minister's communication. Truth asserts that the Premier of New South Wales was born in the same parish in England as Lord Jersey, and then goes on " That's nothing to make a fuss about. There is a man in Darlinghurst Gaol now who was born in the same house." The Woodville Examiner says : —There is an enormous demand for stock this season. A gentleman from the West Coast has bought up all the cattle he can lay his hands on at good prices. Several settlers inform us that sheep are- scarcely to be

A man named Burch attempted suicide at New Plymouth recently in a queer fashion. He opened the lid of a well thirtyfeet deep, and was about to plunge into eternity, when a neighbour rushed forward and caught him by the legs as he was falling. Some friends who attended the funeral of a young English lady had a novel experience the other day. A few weeks before, the lady had sung " Nearer my God to Thee" into a phonograph, and after the funeral ceremony the hymn was

reproduced. The illuminated address that has been presented to Dr. Posnett by his students is now on view at Wildman and Lyell's. The illumination of the text has been carefully executed by Mr. Sandford, who deserves credit for the work. The address had been neatly bound in morocco leather by Sir. R. S. Abel. The Taranaki Herald says :—" The cause of the lack of competition in the Maori haka at the sports on Tuesday last is stated to be a mandate issued by Te Whiti, forbidding his followers to take part in the Jubilee celebrations. The white men, he is reported to have said, might rejoice, fcub there was nothing for the Maoris to celebrate."

The following is the state of Her Majesty's Prison, Auckland, for the week ending April 4, 1891: —On remand, 1 male; awaiting trial, 1 male; penal servitude, 50 males, 1 female; hard labour, 54 males, 16 females ; default of bail, 5 males; received during the week, 8 males; discharged, 11. Total in prison, 111 males, 17 females.

The residential clause in homestead leases in New South Wales provides that the lessee shall reside on the land for six months in the year. In order to comply with this proviso it is said some pastoralists pitch a tent in the wilderness, and sleep in it six months out of the twelve, spending the remainder in more comfortable quarters in the city.

A Christchurch paper states : — Four weeks ago Mr. Orton Bradley, of Charteris Bay, Lyttelton, planted a pumpkin in a 6in earthenware pipe of fin thickness, the other day the pipe was burst asunder by the growth of the pumpkin. The pumpkin, instead of taking an elongated form, as one would suppose, expanded -and forced itself from its enclosure.