NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10406, 2 April 1897, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Flora arrived from the South. Ovalau arrived from the Islands. Drowning fatality at Wellington. Glenlora sails for London this morning. A case of diphtheria has terminated fatally at Foxton. An English mail amvei from Sydney by tbe Anglian on Monday. There were in the lockup last evening two persons on charges of drunkenness. A rabbit was recently killed on the coast with four tuske, each an inch and a-half

Jong. Swimming classee have been started in connection with the Girls' High School, Dunedio. A telephone office has been opened ab Henderson, the hours of attendance being nine a.m. to five p.m. A party has been organised at Fitzroy (W.A.), to capture tbe natives who recently murder Thomas Jasper. At Melbourne a firm of auctioneers was fined £20 for having a diseased carcast of beef on tho premises for sale. Rabbits for freezing are being taken in at the Mataura Freezing Works at the rate of something like 5000 a day. The establishment of a fish market on the site of the old Dunedin gaol is advocated by tbe Otago Daily Times. In Dunedin 3988 names were struck off the electoral roll, and only 137 persons applied to have their names reinstated. While travelling with a circus, near Kalgoorlie (Western Australian), a man n»med Thomaa Smith was killed by a falling tree. A dressmaker named Miss Brooks was io severely burned at Gundagai, owing to her clothes catching fire, that her recovery is regarded as hopeless. Several tradesmen who left Bathurst for West Australia a few months ago have returned, being unable to secure continuous work on the goldfielde. An artesian well has been sunk in Queensland to a depth of 4400 feet, giving a flow of 40,000 gallons per diem. It is tbe deepest well in Australasia. The Mackay (Queensland) Sugar Jonrnil estimates the increase in the sugar production of the colony at 10,000 or 12,000 tons, as compared with last year. A little boy named Baker was capsized out ot a buggy in Masterton tbe other morning and the vehicle went over bis chest and arma. His injuries are rather serious. The two new diseasgresistißg varieties of English potatoes, named "Up-to-Date" and "British Queen," are said to yield a crop twice as heavy as any other variety. At the Police Court on Wednesday, a man named Wm. Hoersrd was accused of stealing from Samuel Fullerton a drum containing five gallons of rum. It should have been five gallons of oil. The area of land in wheat in North Otago last season was much larger than in the previous year, but if all we (North Okago Times) hear is to be realised, there will be twice ae much iu wheat next season as there was last.

Fresh charcoal is readily eaten by all kinds of poultry, including ducks, geese, guineas, and chickens. It serves as a corrective when they have been confined too closely on one kind of food, and it also promotes digestion. A red buck deer chased a Wellington cyclist the other day at Western Lake, and the alarmed wheelman took refuge in a trie, dragging his bike up after him. He was "up a tree" for several hours before tbe stag went away. It is reported that a Patntahi settler discovered buried on a hill in that vicinity * day or two ago a box, which, on being opened, proved to contain a human skeleton, and which is thought) to be that of an old soldier who had been buried there.

Two Masterton cyclists returning from Carterton the other evening ran into a barricade of fence rails which had been placed across the whole width of the road, oear the Chinaman's garden; at Kuripuni, with the result that the men were hurt and the machines considerably damaged.

A surveyor near the Deep Stream (Otaijo) while engaged at his work, was fiercely and vigorously attacked by a hawk. It rushed at him repeatedly, brushing him with its wings, and knocking his hat off. He drove it away with some trouble, when it then attacked one of the chainmen in the same •Banner.