NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11539, 26 November 1900, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

-m ♦ - fftfOTOA: left for the South. r . ' Zealandia arrived from Sydney. . Elingamite for Sydney this evening. 'The Frisco mail leaves on December 6. ; Tyser steamer Tonic-ana" left Sydney for f Auckland. ' , ~. . 1 , Fat cattle at Melbourne show a decline oi •bout 10s per head. . The Minister for Public Works spent the day yesterday with Mr, Witheford, at Northcote. ' „ _„„,, The yachting season was formally opened on Saturday last, the display of yachts in the harbour being v CT successful^- „f On Saturday week Mr. John Waters, of Gravel Plains station, Corryong ff««Ji was thrown by a young horse and killed inSt At the Civil Service examinations to be held in January, there will be no fewer than 675 candidates, 100 of whom are in the senior division. . , .'_: ■A miner named William Unwin, who lost the sight of an eye at Broken Hill last.year, cut his throat at Bendigo last week, and died Boon afterwards. J_ . , Condoboiin, New South Wales, was visited with a grasshopper plague on a recent Saturday night, all buildings being invaded with swarms of the pest. . x During a heavy thunderstorm at Fonder (Cape Hawke) the lightning struck a. stay of the ketch Mary Laurie, lying at Hickson s Wharf, and completely severed the wire. One of the oldest and best known pioneer families in New South Wales—the Suttor celebrated the hundredth anniversary of their landing in Sydney on Member ' Carpenters working on dredges in the Lawrence district, Otago, are receiving 12s a dav. besides board and lodging expenses— that is to say, £4 12s a week for 48 hours a There is apparently not so much in a name as many suppose, "for a Chinaman named Ah Luck has been garotted, rendered unconscious, and iobbed by a band of Sydney larrikin ST An artesian bore on Canal Creek, in the Cloncurry district (Queensland), has struck a flow of water estimated at 200,000 gallons daily at a depth of 600 ft, Boring is still being continued. '_ - A terrible hailstorm passed over Uralla and Rocky River, New South Wales hailstones as big as hen eggs falling. At Lralla the hail broke about 50 panes of glass, and the street lamps were nearly all cracked or broken. ~ , Word has been received at Adelaide that the blacks in the Northern Territory of South Australia are getting very troublesome. A man named Osborne was speared by them at the Victoria River, and they also killed six horses and ate them. " The Government has under consideration the appointment of a Statutes Revision Commission as provided by the Reprint of Statutes Act, 1895. A good deal of the initial work has already been earned out by Mr. Joliffe, Assistant Bill Draughtsman. A Wairarapa resident states that in consequence of the vicissitudes of the season the cut of wool there will not be quite so heavy as it was last year. The excessive rainfall has also had a somewhat bad effect on the wool itself. In many cases it is not only inferior in but also very, much matted. . ' , The small birds pest is becoming very bad in country districts down south (says the Dunstan Times). Farmers, in self-defence. have been compelled to cut down live hedges and" plantations of forest trees to reduce the nuisance. Miles of fine thorn hedges had to be sacrificed and replaced by posts and wire netting. * . , . Recently John Hocking, married, a coal onloader, employed at Block 10, Broken Hill, met with an accident which later on caused his death through shock. He was stepping out of the wav of a laden truck, when his right foot caught in the points. Before he : lould extricate it the truck went over, the limb, crushing it to a pulp. The other Sunday morning Jane Fraser, *ged 15, an inmate" of the Servants' Training Home, at East Melbourne, was found 3ead in bed. While removing a garment on the Saturday morning previous, she remarked to a companion, " I shall never have this on again. Something tells me I am going to die." She had shown no serious symptoms previously. A shocking sight was presented by a truck-load of eight steers which arrived by train from Dunedin on Friday (says the limaru Herald). Most of them had been down and badly trampled upon. They were at once run out to Washdyke and unloaded, four of them having to be hauled out— dead and two dying, and others are not expected to live. A man named William Waglin, a resident of Elmore, Victoria, died under shocking circumstances. Overcome by drink, he fell asleep on a bull-ants' nest, and during the night he was attacked by the ferocious insects. Next -morning Waglin was found in a terrible condition from the attacks of the ants. He was then in a collapsed and inlensible state, and died shortly afterwards.