NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8631, 29 July 1891, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The Labour Party at Brisbane are starting in evening paper. , ... , The Adelaide Legislature is talking of a dose season for kangaroos. -■ , . Victorian capitalists are alleged to be investing in house property in Adelaide. The Presbyterian Federal Assembly, has decided to hold the next year's meeting at Adelaide. .'■.': • • . ... , Estimated cost of adopting eight hours system in South Australian Government service, £40,000 per annum. . The Gisborne bakers announce that the price of bread will be raised one haUpenuy per 21b loaf after the Ist August). A son of Sir H. Parkes will, it is understood, seek municipal honours in the Coburg Shire, M. S. W., at the August elections. James Murphy, jun., has been committed for trial at Sydney for forging a mortgage deed, and defrauding his father of £1000. It is stated that the Government Printer has three times as many subscribers for Hansard this session as he has ever had beThe Woolloomoolloo Bay quays have been sold to a private company, to be U3ed as a wool dumping and shipping estabhshMr. Robert Saunders, a well-known Dunedin softgoodsman, latterly employed by Messrs. Sargood in that city, died suddenly yesterday. . ~ Wm. Barnard, charged with stealing money from the Prince of Wales Hotel (Bell Block), on May 25fch last, was com- • mitted for trial at New Plymouth yesterday. . A man named William Scarrow, 32 years - of age, committed suicide at Sansen, drowning himself in a dam on his fathers land. He complained lately of pains and noises in head. Shortly before seven o'clock yesterday evening Michael McDonnell, grocer, Tainuistreet, Greymouth, while sitting by his own fireside, pitched forward and died almost instantly. . , , The Minister for Agriculture has written to the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association that he will not take steps to declare the colony free from sheep scab till . after the harvest. The secretary of the Opobiki Acclimatisation Society reports that he had a wire from Port Chalmers, informing him that Scotchburn and Loch Loven trout ova had been shipped for there. . A meeting of the Wellington volunteers will be held shortly to consider the ad- ■: visabiuby of sending a New Zealand beam to compete ab the annual meeting of the New South Wales Association in October next. Railway Commissioners of Mew South Wales are talking of establishing a common time-table for all the sister provinces of Australia, and abolishing the ante- ' meridian and post-meridian system of notation of time. At a meeting of aFeilding local body the other day a member said, Why, the reporters are nob writing ; why is that ?" One irate pencil-driver uttered in an audible whisper, " Talk sense and then we will." A painful silence followed. . An inquiry was held at the Orua Downs into • the. cause of death of a man whose skeleton was found there some days ago. The circumstances were considered suspicious, bub nobbing new was elicited, and an open verdict was returned. According to a Rangibikei contemporary, three of the unemployed sent to Hunterville by the Government gob frightened of the Hunterville mud the day they arrived there, and bolted. The roads in that locality are said to be in a terrible state. South Wales police have returned - from Camden without having caught the Benalla black trackers. The only hope of the authorities is that the heavy rains and swollen rivers will restrain the blacks from getting into the northern wilds. The amount paid in pensions and gratuities in Victoria during the financial year ended June 30 was £161,574, being £107,441 pensions ";•.: £30,841 in annuities for infirmity, and £12,057 as compensation to widows and children under special votes. The following is an extract from a letter from Yorkshire just received by a Wellington gentleman:—"l ate a- New Zealand apple the other day ; the flavour was very nice. They were selling at a penny each, and were in a very good state of preservation." - ■■■' - ->■- ■■:'; The Opotiki Herald says:—" Rather a remarkable freak of nature is reported this morning from the native settlement of Waioeka. A native woman bore triplets; one of the little strangers is'seemingly a half caste, one a full-blooded Maori, and one (still born) of what nationality informant sayethnot." : A numerously attended meeting was held at Reefton to consider the proposed Bill for the amendment of the Mining Act. The new clauses were unanimously condemned, and a series of resolutions were passed protesting against the adoption of the Bill, in its present form, and urging that the Bill be held over till next session. The Victorian Charity Organisation is making arrangements to provide work for , the unemployed. * On ibs suggestion the Minister of Lands has agreed to allow timber cutting on 1200 acres of land between Dandenong and Ferntree Gully. It is thought that this will provide work for a number of men. The society will have the timber sold and will pay 5s a day wages. ■ . ■ ■'■■: A Palmerston resident, from whose back yard clothes were being continually missed, hid in his fowlhouse the other night in order to catch the culprit. After waiting an hour his patience was rewarded, for he caught the offender in the act—a quiet old • horsewho was peacefully chewing the : remains of a table cloth, and was about bo Start on a pair of socks. s Referring to the recent strike in Queensland, the Bishop of Brisbane recently stated that it was "not by more legislation to redistribute property or incomes, but by awakening in men a sense of brotherhood, ' proceeding from a perception of fatherhood, revealed by God in Christ, and by a self-control, arising out of the recognition of this relationship the slow evolu- . tion of these deep principles—will the true , Christian socialism be attained." According to the Wanganui Chronicle the I youngsters in the upper standards at the boys' school served the chairman of the Education Board and school committee respectively with formal notice that, unless their " wrongs are righted," and that forthwith, they have determined to go "on strike." Thirty-five boys in Standard V. signed the demand for ! a half-holiday each : day during the time the school was being painted. Another manifesto, signed by 42 boys, merely notified that they had struck.