NEWS IS BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10412, 9 April 1897, Page 6

NEWS IS BRIEF.

fl.M.s. Taobanoa arrives from Sydney A move i» on foot to form a Nelson Rifle One'lady at Foxton has collected £1112s gd for the Indian Famine Relief Fund. There were in the lock-up last evening, two persons on charges of drunkennew. The p.s. Wakatere will run an excursion to • beautiful bay at the far end of Waiheke on Good Friday, Three persons were warned off the Blenhein racecourse last week for improper

betting practicei. The Marlborough fruit season has been a good one, but the codlio moth is a large consumer as usual. The Wyndham Herald states that Mr. W H. Lambert has just received from England an order for 100,000 trapped rabbits. A white woman, barefooted and carrying a bundle, wa3 met walking from Blenheim to Nelson last Saturday. She declined all offers of assistance. The present seaeon has been a disastrous nne to fruit-growers on the west coast of this island, mainly owing to the big etorm of a month or eo ago, Last week William Campbell, aged four, was run over by a tramear in Victoria Avenue, Melbourne, and sustained such injuries that be died soon afterwards. A specimen of a pretty Australian and tropical bird, a pratincole, was shot on the Westport beach last week. Probably it was blown across from Australia or the islands. At the Chrietchurch Police Court, Edwin Geach, agent for Carl Hertz, wai charged witli overcrowding the Theatre Royal. A nominal penalty of 5s and costs was inflicted. The greatest difficulty is being experienced by captains of oversea vesiels at Newcastle, New South Wales, in obtaining crews. It is many years since there was such scarcity of seamen. At Brisbane recently, Albert Thompson, employed in the Custom Office, was riding a bicycle when he came into contact with a cab. Thompson was thrown heavily, and sustained concussion of the brain. Old residenteatKiama.NewSouth Wales, itate that the present drought is the worst experienced since tho summer of the years 1867-68. Feed in every direction has dried up, and winter crops are in a bad way for want of rain. At Tarrabandra (N.S.W.), a young man named John Evans was about to tire off a gun when he noticed something on the sight. He stretched forth his hand to brush it away, and the grun exploded. One of his fingers was shot off. Mr, F. de J. Clere has been commissioned to prepare plans for the Bishop Suter Art Gallery which it ia proposed to establish at Nelson. The idea is to convert an old school building of brick, situated in the Queen's Garden's reserve, into.a gallery. An elderly man named Luke Connolly hanged himself in a shed near hie dwelling at Dubbo, New South Wales, recently. He had been ill for a long time, and had only the previous day returned from Sydney, where he had been an inmate of Prince Alfred Hospital. A man named Jag. Wilkie was drowned at Thompson's woolwaeh at Narrabri, New South Wales. The deceased, who could not swim, was in die habit of bathing on a ledge of rock covered by three feat of water, and it is supposed that he slipped off the rock into twelve feet of water, and was drowned. The suggestion was made at the last meeting of the Nelson Education Board that one of its women teacher* should be sent across to Wellington for thorough instruction in kindergarten work, so that it might be introduced into Nelson schools. The idea met with fanur, but definite action was deferred until the next meeting of the Board.