NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11040, 18 April 1899, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Tbisco mail gone. The Harbour Board meets this afternoon. The Moana took away a large number of passengers. Yesterday was a very busy day amongst the shipping. The Tutanekai found no traces of the missing schooner Marmion. The Premier says the Government intend to amend the Advances to Settlers Act. Amongst the cargo of the Moana was a large shipment of onions for San Francisco. There was one prisoner in the lockup last evening, the charge being that of drunkenness. Some despatches from the United States Government for Samoa arrived too late for the Moana. There is a movement on foot in Temuka to establish an amateur operatic company in that township, Flounders are reported to be very numerous at Greymouth just now. They are caught in the surf. A vacancy has occurred on the Newton Borough Council, through the resignation of Mr. Wm. Davenport. Two young emus were shipped to San Francisco by the Moana yesterday. The birds are from Wellington. The Napier borough valuation for the coming rating year is £82,036, being an increase of £632 on the present year. " Tho world," says Mrs. Sievwright, "has never yet seen a fully grown-up woman, neither has it seen a fully grown-up man.'' The grapes gathered from Messrs. Williams and Beetham's vineyard at Masterton in one week recently weighed 26,0001h5. The National Council of Women at yesterday afternoon's sitting passed a resolution urging a weekly half-holiday for domestic servants. A Mouterc resident brought into Nelson a day or two ago a ton of honey, a load which he claims to be unique so far as that town is concerned. There has lately been an abnormal increase in the number of lunatics in and around Christchnrch. For the last nine days the arrests under this head have averaged one daily. A large number of farmers in the Timaru district have suffered serious loss owing to the rain penetrating their cornstacks, and in some instances wetting them completely through. At the Police Court yesterday, an Italian hawker, who sells coloured balloons for children in Queen-street, was fined ss, with costs 28s, for failing to close "his shop" on Wednesday afternoon. It was mentioned at a recent meeting of the Wellington Benevolent Trustees, as worthy of emulation, that a man with a crippled hand who had been advanced £1 10 years before as passage money, had just returned it with grateful thanks. " These marriage laws are simply a remnant of the old savage slate of man. when. as Leslie Stephen puts it. 'a man obtained his wife by knocking her down.' "—Mrs. Sievwright at the Women's National Council. It is estimated that it would cost £7500 to alter the Mount Cook Gaol at Wellington, in order to fit it for the purposes of the Victoria College, and that a sum of £9000 would cover all contingencies. This expenditure would provide suitable buildings which otherwise would cost £35.000. A company is being formed in New Plymouth for the- purpose of manufacturing condensed milk under a patent by which skim-milk is utilised. After the cream for buttermaking has been separated, a "composition" is added to the hi-product, and apparently it is in connection with this composition that the patent rights relied upon have been granted. If within 21 days the Archhill Road Board does not agree to pay half the cost of metalling the Great North Road running between that district and the Newton borough, the Newton Council has decided to institute a friendly suit to determine the relative liability of the two bodies. The Board maintains it is only liable to contribute one-third of the cost. The Feilding Star says that one morning recently, as the down train from Waogantii was ascending the hill between Kakariki and Halcombe, the load proved too heavv, and gradually brought the train to a standstill. The engine took a portion of the load to Halcombe and returned for the remainder, when the journey was resumed, the train thus reaching Feilding about forty minutes late.