NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11275, 19 January 1900, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

». Herald Summary. 'Frisco mail arrived. Te Anau arrived from the Southj The mail steamer was delayed at Honolulu owing to quarantine regulations. Crops throughout the MaUura Valley ) romise to be well up to the average standard. In the Western district they are even better. The Balclutha District High School Committee intend to resist to the utmost the action of the Education Board in disrating the school. There is a very largo area of land in potatoes in Hawke's Bay this year, and at latest advices the prospects of a large crop were favourable. The women of Christchurch are responding liberally to the appeal to provide the men of both contingents with warm clothing and creature, comforts. The Gympie (Queensland) goldfields' output for the past year was 88,8400z of gold. Dividends to the amount of £92,916 were declared, and the calls came to £124,053. The sitting of the Police Court yesterday mornin» was a brief one, Captain Anderson presiding. A first-offending inebriate was convicted and discharged, and Charles Mclver, for a similar offence, was fined 10s, or 48 hours' imprisonment in default. All preliminary arrangements for establishing oil refineries in these colonies have been completed, says the Sydney Daily Telegraph. Sites have been secured in Melbourne and Sydney for the erection of refining plants, estimated to cost £50,000. It is intended to commence operations as soon as possible. The Titnaru Herald says: " The surveyors completed their labours on the Pareora Estate a few days ago. and the Land Office is now busy getting the sale plans ready. The area purchased bv the Government for settlement is about 8000 acres, and it is said that it has been very carefully cut up. The sale is to take place about March next." A Melbourne telegram of January 5 says: A painful and altogether unusual and pitiable sight was presented at the morgue this morning, the bodies of eight little infants all lying out on one slab, the victims of the recent hot weather. The necessary inquests were held, the medical testimony being that death resulted from the excessive heat acting on a diseased body. A young man, charged at the Dunedin Police Court with obscene language and with damaging property, caused no little surprise by stating that he was unable to read. Asked his ago, he replied that he was 20, and a native of New Zealand. Mr. Mai- ■ lard (one of the presiding justices): " God bless me! Here we are paying £700,000 ' a year to educate you youngsters, and you stand there and say you cannot read. Did you ever go to school?" The young man: "Yes; but I never stuck to school." An alarmist icport got about recently in Wellington that a quantity of the explosive known as " rack-arock" had been stored in a cellar underneath the Government Printing Office. Inquiries bv the Post show that the component parts of the explosive, which is used by the Survey Department, have been stored in one of the cellars, but, it is claimed, not in such a way as to make them dangerous. However, it is understood that in order to allay alarm the chemicals will be removed to some other place.