NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10434, 5 May 1897, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Anglian due from Sydney. T»viuni for (be Island* this evening. Hawea gone South to load for Auckland. Milk is celling at a shilling a quart in Napier. An English mail arrives from Sydney by (he Anglian. At the sitting of tbeOlabnhn Assessment Court no objections were made to the present valuations. Northern Company'* steamer Bellinger arrived from Hobart, after a> very bad weather paeeege. During the late floods the water in the Manawatu Gorge rose higher than any fresh experienced since that of 1880. The Hawera Star says it is understood that the Crown Dairy Factory intend to erect machinery for condensing milk. An order has been placed with Mr. W. Chalmers, of the Wellington Cooperage, for 3000 butter-boxes for Buenos Ayree. Operations have been suspended at the artesian bore in Gisborne, after reaching a depth of 725 feet without striking water. The suggestion is made that a combined railway and traffic brfdge should replace the structure recently destroyed at Kakariki. A statement drawn up by the clerk of the Palmereton Licensing Committee shows that the cost of the late licensing election was £1013s sd. The other day Mr. JlcKenzie, a missionary to the kanakas at North Bondaberg (Queensland), was drowned while bathing at that place. The two disease-resisting varieties of English potatoes named " Up to date " and "British Queen" are said to yields crop twice as heavy as any other variety. At the Otahuhu Magistrate's Court on Monday last, before Messrs. T. Hutchison, S. M., S. Luke, and Captain Irvine, J.P.'s, in the case Haslop v. Loitb, a claim for 12s, balance of contract for cutting oats, judgment was given for plaintiff. Several other cases entered in the plaint-book were settled out of Court. Recently Mr. John Edie, of Springfield, Edievale, from 13 acres threshed 211 bags of four and a-balf bushels each, or a return of 73 bushels to the acre. From a 10-aere paddock the return was 140 bags of four and a-halt, or 63 bushels to the acre. The wheat is of the velvet variety, and harvested in excellent condition. " What about Pomabaka Estate now ?" asks the Clinton Gazette. " A gentleman who is in the best of positions to know informs us that over 30,000 bushels of oats have been threshed on the estate this seaion, besides stacks still standing for chaff. Taking the present market price of oats the yield should be worth £3000." The Tnapeka Times states that during the past four weeks 15,628 dead rabbits bave been brought from Beaumont and Bae'e Junction, an average of 650 per day. A youth at Evans's Flat for three days' trapping caught 117, 172, and 270 respec- j lively. At Moa Flat the rabbiters are sending their rabbits to Mataura by way of Heriot. A case of wanton cruelty to animals occurred on the Sandon-Halcombe road the other evening. A big draught horse which refused to pull in tbe shafts had a chain put round its neck and two horses yoked on to it, with the result that its neck was either dislocated or broken. At any rate, it was left on the middle of the road in • dying condition, and was eventually killed tod shifted out of the read on the following morning. >