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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10084, 20 March 1896, Page 4 (Supplement)

Cabinet has decided to favourably consider an application for subsidising another steamer in the Island trade. The Union Company are asked to give details. From a Government return we learn that) the mortgages registered during 1894-95 amounted to £4,858,766, the rates of interest ranging from '2J to 40 per cent. The number of mortgages was 9111. Tenders are to be invited for the Mokohine viaduct on the North Island Main Trunk Railway. The estimated cosb is between £40,000 and £50,000. Provision is made for the chief portion of the iron work being manufactured in the colony. A preliminary enquiry into the stranding of the New Zealand Shipping Company's steamship Rakaia, on the African coast, on her outward voyage, was held before the Acting-Collector of Customs at Wellington. The depositions have been forwarded to the Marino Department. In reply to the request made by Mr. Cham« berlain, figures have been prepared showing the amount of imports into this colony from British possessions and foreign countries for the years 1884, 1889, and 1894. The total from all sources during these years were respectively £7,663,888, and £6,297,097, and £6,758,020. Of these amounts, British

possessions supnlied £7,009,541, anc £5,729,479, and £6,183,630. America anc

Germany were the principal foreign sources. In 1884 the amount drawn from the latter was only £6p47, which by 1894 had increased to £G5,163.

The Chief Postmaster, Mr. S. B. Biss, | has received the following telegram from the postmaster, W'aipu:—"ln a bottle picked up on Cove Beach, Waipu, is the following written in pencil: ' A lost and starving man's request—Should any person happen to find this bottle will he be kind enough to make it known to some newspaper office that will report of what my fate has been, i.e., lost at sea in an open boat off tlio coast of Australia. Am nearly exhausted for want of fresh water and don't know where I am. Sixteen days without water is awful, Cod forgive —Antony W. Short.' " There is no date on the paper. A preposterous statement is going the entire round of the English press to the effect that the sheep of New Zealand have decreased during the past year to the extent of four million six hundred thousand head ! No reason whatever is adduced for this startling diminution in number, but the inference apparently sought to be conveyed in some cases is that it is due to the exportation of frozen mutton from New Zealand to Great Britain, Of course the report originated in a casual mention by one paper, that, mainly owing to the unprecedented severity of the winter snowstorms the sheep of New Zealand nad decreased by 460,000 head instead of increasing as usual. The mere addition of a cypher enlargod this number to 4,600,000, and so it lias travelled far and wide, and so far as we are aware wholly uncontradicted.