NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10430, 30 April 1897, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

H.M.B. Royaust out of dock. Ta»iuni arrived from the lelandl. Anglian left Sydney for Auckland. The Wakatere is to be floated into Calliope Dock for overhaul. Northern Company's steamer Bellinger das from Hobart on Sunday. Union Company's new steamer Hawea due from the South to-morrow. Opossums are now fairly numerous at Catlins and in theweetern district of Otago. There is some talk of starting a preserved milk factory in Taranaki, probably at Wai. tan. A lad named Quionell shot himself in the leg whilst) playiog with a loaded revolver Wagga Wapga. During the two months the Mining Exhibition was open in Melbourne it was attended by 50,000 people. Excellent specimens of copper have been procured by three prospectors in the Maharabara range, near Woodville. At the Sydney Water Police Court Alfred Goldsmith was fined £100 for keeping an illicit still at 96, Palmer-street. The upper portion of a human skeleton was found on the Beach at White's Bay the other day. It is supposed that the ghastly remains were washed there by the eta.

A large tree fell across a three-roomed house at Brownstown, Forty-mile Bush, belonging to a man named McLean, completely destroying it. Fortunately the family wae away at the time of the accident.

Aβ it was found impossible to get in the colony the beiler required, the Bruce Woollen Company have cabled Home for one, which is to be landed in four month's time. The boiler is to derelop 159 horsepower. Recently Robert Abraham, a cycliet, aged 67, died suddenly in the street at Dandenong (Vic.), whither he had gone on hie bicycle. It is believed that the eices•ire exertion of bis cycling contributed to hie death.

The number of sheep railed from Masterton during the past seven days has been exceptionally large. If the earn* proportion kept up for any four-weekly period it would mean something like 50,000 sheep sent away in the month. An order has been received by Messrs. Colin and McMahon, of Weetport, {or the supply of lire cattle for the German warships in the islands, and they will send a shipment to New Britain by the barque Olencoyn next week. Tbe Waoganui borough Council have aider consideration the question of imposing a tax on bicycles. One councillor has urged that a tax of 10s a year be impoted, aud the money spent in forming a track for cyclists throughout the streets of the town.

When the horses were at the starting point in the Welter Handicap at Riccarton racecourse, a man named Maurice Brown ran across tbe course. He accidentally got under the heels of Rangefinder and received a kick on the head, which cut tbe skull and rendered Brown insensible.

Intelligence of a murderous assault on a Chinaman residing in I'atrick-etreet hai been received by the Stawell (Vic.) police. On visiting the place they found the Chinaman lying in his hut in an insensible condition, Hβ was taken to the hospital, where he was found to have been beaten about tbe head with some blunt instrument.

A movement is on foot (says the Southland News) at the Bluff to float a company to obtain a steamer, fitted with a refrigerator, to call on the several fishing •macks at Huapuke, Stewart Island, Preservation Inlet, and elsewhere, and convey the fiih to a hulk (also containing a refrigerator) stationed at the Bluff, where the stores would lie till despatched to Melbourne and other markets.

Through an error in the report of the benefit performance by the Greenwood Company to the Hawke'i Bay Relief Fund in yesterday mornings Herald MUb Haribel Greenwood was stated to have played the part of Romeo in the burlesque "Romeo and Juliet Up to Date." The part was taken by Misa Agatha Greenwood, and it) might be mentioned that at no time has Miss J'aribel been associated with burlesque.