NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11619, 5 April 1901, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Good ffBIDAY. ~3*l Te Anau arrived from the South. .'. Ovalau arrived from the Eastern Pacific. The maiL steamer Sonoma, from San Francisco, is not due -until the 19th inst., having left three days late. ; ■■■■ -••:; > . : . ~ _ Professor Newman's Palace of Wonders Will .open this afternoon and evening, next to Bartlett's, photographer. _ . The Queensland Government is abandoning the system of insuring the contingents, - as it is found cheaper to pay all claims them-

selves. :■," " " . , ■ Between 90 and 100 gallons of oil were extracted from the blubber of the two whales (mother and calf) recently killed at Titahi Bay, near Wellington. An old age pensioner at Stawell, Victoria, has intimated that he no longer requires the pension, for with money received from the State he had purchased tools and found gold. Threshing was very brisk at Tapanui last week, whenever the weather suited.' Seme farmers considered the grain rather too moist, and stacked in preference to thresh-

ing. -■.■. .■' . The fall in the price of sheep which has occurred during the last week or two,; says a Wairarapa paper, will result in a substantial loss to many Masterton speculators who bought in anticipation of a still further rise. A young man named Beattie, while engaged as a marker at the Warwick rifle range (Queensland), was shot in the back of the head, and died instanteously. The bullet passed through the earth and timber work of the marker's shelter. The potato crop is not a good one in a number of places at Waikaka Valley, and several are complaining of both the quality and the quantity, the late frosts blackening them to the ground. The earlier frosts also touched them in some places. At the Perth Supremo Court, on March 14, Mr. C. H. McGregor recovered £35 damages from Mr. John Mitchell, hairdresser, for alleged negligence. The case arose from plaintiff contracting what is known . as barber's rash in the defendant's saloon. . i.. The total number of bankruptcies in the Wairarapa for the month of March, was one, as against one for the same month last year. For the period of three months this yeai, there were four bankruptcies, and six for the corresponding period last year. Some very large mushrooms have been obtained on the Taratahi of late. Lately a Masterton resident found several mushrooms of abnormal.growth, nearly approaching the size of a wash-hand basin. It is believed that these mushrooms are of a special species. The Brisbane River presented a pretty sight on March 22, when it was covered with immense masses of the plant known as the water hyacinth, brought down by the rise in the upper parts of the stream. Some patches were acres in extent, and were full of purple i flowers. . A child named Martha Whitehead, aged three, was scalded to death in a remarkable manner at. her parents' residence, Burnly, near Melbourne. She took up a teapot from a table, put the spout in her mouth, and swallowed the boiling contents, dying a few hours afterwards.

A novel sight was witnessed in Stratford (Taranaki) the other morning a fourbullock team attached to an old mail coach. By this means passengers were being conveyed to and from the racecourse. Amidst the dashing equipages 'of the livery stables the old "turnout" looked comical. , A boy named Percy Mulcrony, aged 15, met with, a fatal accident in Fitzroy (Victoria), recently. ' While coasting down a slope at a speed of about 14 or 15 miles an hour, he ran into a horse and buggy in trying to avoid a train, fracturing his skull and injuring his abdomen. . A verdict of accidental death, was returned at the inquest: ' At the Oamaru. Police Court last week, Alexander Aitcheson was fined £2 and costs on a charge of breaking ah insulator on the telegraph line. Mr. Bagshaw, of the Telegraph Department, deposed that within the last six weeks he had had to put up 310 insulators to repair breakages, at a total cost of £31 7s.

The Taieri Advocate states that the result of the vote of the members of the Mosgiel Presbyterian Church with regard to the use of the individual communion cup was that 74 voted for it, and 40 against it. Some 90 members did not vote. The result will be forwarded to the Dunedin Presbytery to be dealt with.