NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11563, 29 January 1901, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Anniversary Dat. Talune left for Sydney. Taviuni due from Fiji. . Mararoa /or the South this afternoon. ■ The Customs Department will be closed to-day. . . ' The honey harvest this summer as said to be a poor one in Masterton. A large shipment of maize was tasen to Sydney yesterday by the Talune. Btulion v&lued at £6400 was sent away to. London, Sydney, yesterday. ; . The quantity of wool exported from Victoria for the last six months sho wa a drop of over £1,000,000. The births in the Sydney metropolitan area for the 1 quarter ended December 31 numbered 2847. being 553 less than the last quarto of 1899. A man named Robert Smith has been lost in lite bush at Card well (Queensland) since •"•'•: fchs 12th hist; The police and c tracker are j searching for him. A man named F. Strasding, carpenter of tho rquo Arracan, at Newcastle, was druvnid on January 16, while under the infiuftr.cs of liquor. Farmers complain of the scarcity of labv - our in the Masterton district just now. One man was unable to start harvesting as he could not procure "stookers." . Two men, named Sydney Reynolds and '■■ William Feeney, have been seriously injured at the Half-moon dredge, Braidwood. Reynolds' injuries, it is feared, will prove fatal. The coach in which the late Prince of ■ g'aie-Coburg, when Duke of Edinburgh, was conveyed from Wellington to the Hutt over 30 years ago, is still preserved at Mas- ■ terton.' - ■ -. To put -an end to the toll-gate trouble .in Taranaki, one of the members of the County Council proposes to move for the abolition of tolls after March 31, and the addption of a wheel tax in lieu of it. A very large quantity of that peculiarlyshaped jelly fish, known as the Portuguese ■ man-of-war, were washed up on the coast near Pakarae last week. For many yards the beach was covered, and on the stretches of beach between there and Tatapouri large quantities were also swept up. We have to acknowledge the receipt of a card from Messrs. Fitzgerald Brothers, in which is given a orief historical account of the progress of their new circus, and its attractions from the beginning in 1889 to the present time. They expect soon to be in Auckland, and show our citizens the latest ,','■■... attractions they have gathered together. } At Nelligen, New; South Wales, on ami- | ary 17, Robert Dent, aged eight, years-, . fell | off. the pier into deep water. Lee Johnson, aged 10 years, jumped in to save Dent, j but the drowning boy clung to him, end j ■ both were sinking, when Niol Johnson. I aged 12 years, pluckily plunged in, and after some trouble safely landed his companions. - ■ | :. The other evening Miss Hunter and other | , ladies were returning from the military j camp at Langwarrin (Victoria) to Franks- j town' railway station, in the dusk, when 1 Miss Hunter fell, wounded in the thigh,by | a gun with which some boys were playing, rod -which went off accidentally. She was j '■■■'■* taken to the camp, and attended by the military doctor. ' The whole of the steel shelving for the ' new Parliamentary Library has arrived in the colony, and the work of placing it in | position will be completed by the end of | this week. The removal of the books from'| their old quarters will then be commenced, § and ample time will thus be available for | getting everything in readiness for the next a session of Parliament. i ".-<■■' I As evidence of the destructiveness of eels I in our fresh-water fisheries, Mr. W. H. § / Tisdall, of Wellington, exhibits an eel | 1 brought in from Trentham, measuring sft | . long, and 16in in girth, and weighing 251b. | ■ In its interior was found, a half-digested | i trout, ' 15in long, probably ' one of many ij ' which had gone to satisfy, the appetite of a this hungry- water-rover. |