NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9399, 4 January 1894, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

• s jB£«0!> stock Bales yesterday. '; There 'said to be a goodly number of bout in the Manawatu River this season. ' £r- Newman,; M.H.R. for Wellington t ßti&urbs, is at present on a visit to Auck- ■;: land.■■-:■/.;•:■;•;'• <•; *.':,'■ \~< < '••■'.■/•.■:■■.■: ; The Auckland cricketers have arrived at Christchurch. The match commences to- "'..•• morrow. .; "-/■- ■ The farmers in the Bundaberg (Q.) district intend to erect a sugar mill at a cost of £40,000. r , |At the lateJCrystal Palace Dog Show there were 1500 exhibits, and £4000 were given in prizes. . Oatmeal is said to have been the staple food of an old lady who' has just died in County Durham, aged 110. It is' stated that nearly 170 cases of leprosy have been discovered in Australia during the past five years. ' On September 30 the population of Victoria was 1,171,185, of which 606,752 were males, and 564,433 females. : A banana tree is in flower in the Government House Grounds. The tree is in a pot, but is in the open air. A ooloured man of over 50 years of age from America was married to a young woman of 21 at Hastings the other day. A naked lunatic has been seen in the scrub near Petersburg, South Australia. The police and inhabitants are after him. ; At a place called Market Deeping, in England, a hen was recovering after having been accidentally shut up in a copper, without food or water, for twenty-three days. The only occupant of the lock-up last evening was Mary Wakehara, who was charged with larceny of a child's dress, value 6s 6d, the property of Ellen Bennett. The will of the late Willis Pearson, M.L.C, has been sworn in Melbourne at £205,613. The duty paid was £20,561. In addition deceased made settlements of property during his life at £42,176. The duty on this was £1990. There appears to be a difference of opinion as to when the late Bishop Harper was born. One paper says he was born in 1803, another in ISO 4, yet another in 1806, and the "Dictionary of Australasian Biography" fixes the date at ISO 7. Two brothers in the Manawatu district were recently injured while bushfelling at the same hour, in the same manner, and placed upon the same train for the same hospital. The brothers were forty miles apart when the accidents occurred. Mr. W. C. Baker, of New Jersey, United States, claims to be '" the chicken king of the universe." Mr. Baker's " Eccalobeon," or artificial hatching establishment, turns out 250,000 chickens a year. He keeps 2000 laying hens, and buys all the fresh and fecund eggs that are offered him. The Opera House has been engaged by the Auckland Amateur Opera Club for nine nights in the month of April next, for their forthcoming production of "Madam Favart." By advertisement members are informed that rehearsals will bo resumed at the Choral Hall on Monday evening next. The Victorian drink bill for IS9I was £6,500,000. Last year it was about a million less. This (says the Age) means an average of nearly £30 for every household in the colony; and when wo deduct the temperance and teetotal homes we have it revealed to us what vast liquor-consuming places some households are. Two boys named Walter Augustus Bussell, aged nine, and Albert August Bussell, aged 11, recently gob out of their depth in a waterhole near Orange, in New South Wales, when bathing with a boy named Moles. The latter returned home without informing anyone until after tea, when after considerable trouble the bodies were recovered. The Victorian Government are stretching ft point in their retrenchment scheme, the services of Baron von Mueller (the Government Geologist), Mr. R. L. J. EUery (the Government Astronomer), and Mr. H. H. Hayter (the Government Statist), who are all over 65 years of age, being retained for another year, owing to the special scientific knowledge each possesses. Thb Mount Wills tinfield, in Victoria, is pronounced by an officer of the Mining Department a failure. He says : " I can come to no other conclusion than that the Mount Wills tinfield is unfortuately a failure as a mining venture and a mining investment, and moreover that it is not likely—notwithstanding the large amount of capital expended in exploring and endeavouring to develop it— prove remunerative or reproductive in the future." The Napier Telegraph says s— A digger who arrived in Napier on Christmas Day from the Auckland gumfields, has called at our office to warn men from going up there. He says the sum of one pound is demanded as a license, and when that privilege has been obtained he is sent to fields that have been worked for over twenty years, consequently men going there to make a living Will be wofully disappointed."