NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 11542, 29 November 1900, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

- HaTOOTO left for the Islands. - Mararba left Sydney.for Auckland. Two cargo steamers due from London today. \ , - A Suez mail leaves by way of the South to-day. The calls at Charters Towers for the month of October amounted to £3800, and the dividends to £38,00 G. A bearer corps has been formed by the New Plymouth branch of the St John Ambulance Association. The Tasmanian Woolgrowers' Association has paid a dividend of 15 per cent., and a bonus of 10 per cent. The quantity of Victorian gold received at the Melbourne Mint during the month ot October was 66,4050z. A settler in the Forty-mile Bush dears quite a large sum annually by breeding turkeys for the Wellington market. The areas of lands already reserved for timber in Queensland total 1,576,278 acres, and further areas are to be reserved. •■ The telegraph office at Werns Creek railway station, New South Wales, was struck by lightning on Sunday week, much damage resulting. .... One sensible mother had two children roped to her to prevent their getting lost in the crush at the Palmerston railway station the other night. A deputation of ladies recently waited upon the Home Secretary of Queensland and urged the appointment of police matrons at the various lockups of the colony. The Watts fund, subscribed in Wanganui for the children of the man who was drowned in the Wanganui River while endeavouring to save a girl from a similar fate, amounts to £526. The Nelson Colonist learns that a welldefined lode of chrome, fully 3ffc wide, has been discovered in the direction of Aniseed Valley. The chrome is said to be of excellent quality, and the prospectors have taken steps to secipe their interests. The Victorian revenue returns for the month of October show that the receipts amounted to £636.261, being £79,960 moie than for October last year. Of this increase probate duties are responsible for £28,436,. railways £23,401, and Customs £17,738. The baptism of children in water brought all the way from the River Jordan, was made a feature of the service of one of the Wellington churches on Sunday (says the Wellington Post). A member of the congregation had brought the prized liquid in returning from a tour that had included a visit to Palestine. . . . The general rain throughout Victoria is not calculated to improve the early crops, but it is expected that the late and middle areas will benefit materially, and a much more iavourable view can be taken of the crops than was the case a week or two ago. The extent ot the crops is yet only a matter of conjecture. The Melbourne water police were informed the other afternoon that a body was floating in the Yarra near the Australian Wharf. They made all haste to the spot, only to take out an exceedingly life-like effigy of ex-President Kruger, which had apparently been thrown overboard from the ship Cambrian Warrior. A curious incident occurred in the South Australian House of Assembly the other afternoon. Mr. Rounsevell was asking the legal members of the House to throw some light on the subject under discussion, when an incandescent bowl dropped from the chandelier, and clashed through a newspaper which Mr. Caldwell was reading. The other day Mr. Oughton, of Okaiawa, lost a draught"fillv under peculiar circumstances. The animal was running with others in a paddock, the fence ot which is protected with a guard wire a couple of feet J, from the ditch. The filly got over this, and the barbed wire caught in the joint of her hind leg, completely severing the limb.