NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9027, 4 November 1892, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

•The insurance on Mr. Whitelaw's house is £300 ; furniture £150, in the New Zealand. , , , . A monster oel, becoming entangled in the turbine, stopped the Lincoln flourmills, Canterbury. , . . , , . A lad named Isherwood is reported to the toolice authorities as having absconded from the Kobimaramara Industrial School. A contemporary suggests that the shrinkage in the drink bill of the colony is no doubt caused by the superior temptations of the totalisator. , During a bankruptcy case at Napier the other day, the Official Assignee was able to make the satisfactory announcement that the estate had realised 20s in the £.

Six Carterton schoolboys, out rabbiting, discovered a bottle of whisky hidden among some logs. They drank the lot between them, and suffered in consequence. A comparative statement of the revenue of the Oamaru Harbour Board for the past nine months for the last three years is as follows:—1880, £6134 13s 4d ; 1891, £3668; 1892, £3202 19s 3d. The goods traffic on the railway between New Plymouth and Hawera has increased bo much during the last few months, that the present ordinary engine-power is quite inadequate for the work. A writ for £200 has been issued against Mr. Alexander Black, proprietor of the Pahiatua Star, by Mr. F. Greville, late editor of that paper, for breach of an agreement to enter iuto partnership. In reply to a circular sent out by the Greymouth branch of the Public Service Association, Inspector McGovern has announced that the police have been cautioned against becoming members of that eociety. A correspondent of a Southern newsSiper thinks that instead of a Labour emonstration Day, there ought to be an Employers' Day, for in these depressed times, he says, the lot of some of the muchmaligned employers is not a happy one. Recent heavy rains have caused a slip in the Mosgiel Colliery, and it will be impossible to obtain coal from the mine until the whole of the fallen stuff has been cleared. The land in the vicinity of the Mosgiel Colliery has sunk considerably of j late.

lb will be seen from our advertising columns that, weather permitting. Professor Pannell will give one of his displays of fancy swimming (assisted by pupils) at the end of the Isorthcote Wharf on Saturday afternoon. The exhibition is a free one.

The meeting called for yesterday afternoon, in the Chamber of Commerce, to consider a proposal to purchase the portrait of the late Mr. Mackelvie for the new annexe to the Art Gallery, did not take place, only two or three gentlemen being in attendance.

A Farmer" writes to the Chnstchurch Press that there is every probability of the bot-fly being numerous this summer. He states that last week, when having some troughs taken out of a pig-sty, he came upon a seething mass of young bot-flies under the troughs. A peculiar sheep disease, which was prevalent in the Manawatu district last year, has again manifested itself. Mr. S. Ash, of Parekaretu, lost 110 ewes out of 270. The symptoms were a little darkcoloured blood flowing from the nose, and the wool parting from the skin very easily at death. Otherwise the sheep appeared to be in first-class condition. The Waimate Times understands that the Government propose to purchase a block of land in that district, opposite Mr. C. V. Clarke's, on the north road, for the purpose of cutting it up into small farm settlements, similar to what has been done with the education reserves. The land referred to adjoins one of the preset) farm settlements, that formerly known as Rickman's. The Review of Reviews thus describes the depression in Victoria :—" Victoria, for example, spends over £6,000,000 per annum on intoxicating drinks. It has poured down its owe throat, that is, during the last twelve months of ' depression,' nearly three times the sum of its latest loan, with no other result than a heightened crime rate, and a swollen army of widows and orphans 1"