NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9726, 23 January 1895, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

The Board of Education mob yesterday. Rotor is crowded with visitors ab prelent. Several of the Auckland yachts are going into dock on Friday. A large number of people lefb for the South, by the Monowai yesterday afternoon. The resignation of five Justices of the Peace reached the Justice Department during December last. Despite the efforts of the West Coast mines, New Zealand last year took 160,244 tons of coal from Newcastle, or 6000 more than in 1893. • A large black rat, of a rare species, was discovered on the table of the Executive Council Chamber at Sydney the other day. ,Ib was killed by some of the attendants and taken to the Museum. A Napier paper of Friday last says;— The party which visited the Ruahine ranges returned on Wednesday night, without having had a dry skin for a week. The trip was an adventurous one, and therefore highly satisfactory to the " young bloods" who participated. The Gear Company is purchasing a large quantity of stock from various parts of the line, says a correspondent of the Palmers- I ton Time?. Over 2000 sheep have already been railed from Shannon during the past week, and another 2000 will be sent to the works from this district next week. The Hawke's Bay Herald says : -The Bhort cablegram which we received lasb night relative to the increased demand for wool in the Home markets is likely to bo more appreciated by the inhabitants of this district than even our very elaborate report) of the Hon. Richard Seddon's speech. The Hawke's Bay Herald reports that Mr. F. D. Luckie, jun., brought. into Napier recently a splendid specimen of the wild horse, a black stallion about 14 hands 2 inches in height, which ho had himself captured after an exciting chase lasting nearly bix hours, on the Kaieangaroa Plains. » The West Coast correspondent of a Southern paper says : - Up at Mount Frazer, a high peak of the main range of the Alps, distant from Rosa some four miles as the crow flies, Air. Antonio Zala—veteran prospector of quartz reefs inaccessible to most other men—has proved a reef that must make his fortune and open up a reefing country rivalling that of Reefton. At a Salvation Army picnic at Waka•puaka, Nelson, recently, an elderly man named Rodgers, in order to fix a swing for the pleasure of the children, climbed a tree, which, when he was in the acb of making the rope fast, split, and ho fell with a dull thud a distance of some 15 feet. It was deemed advisable to remove the unfortunate man to the hospital. A Southern paper says :—The bookstalls on the railway bring in :—Dunedin, £95 ; Christchurch, £50; Timaru, £30 Auckland, £26 6s; Wellington, £15; Ashburton, ' £10 Invercargill, £6; and Oamaru, £5 a year. Altogether, the Great Southern Railway seems to be a literary line, judging by the higher rate paid for the privilege o7 the bookstalls than in Auckland or Wellington.