NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11800, 1 November 1901, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

M'ottea arrived from tlie South. The trout-fishing season opens to-day. A sample of crude petroleum lias ' been obtained close to Eltham. The Taranaki Bacon Factory is offering fld per lb f.o.b. Hawera, for bacon pigs. The qautntity of milk now being received daily at the Grey town cheese factory is 1250 gallons. The oil steamer for the German Governor of Samoa was launched by Mr. R. Logan, sen., yesterday morning. For the fortnight ended October 15, the quantity of sugar exported from Queensland amount-ed to 8202 tons. A purebred Exmoor pony stallion has been imported to Napier. The pony is two years old, and stands 40in high. j A herd of five deer crossed the Ruamaliunga on Sunday last-, and were feeding at Papawai during the day. There is a decrease in the area under 'wheat this year in Victoria, while the oat ■crop promises to be the largest on record. Last week Mr. R. Seymour, fishing two hours each afternoon, near Carterton, landed 105 trout, the weight aggregating 2owt. A large whale was seen spouting off the New Plymouth Breakwater about five p.m. on Sunday. It was travelling in a westerly direction. A Chinaman who went to the Sydney Hospital to be treated for what he_ thought an ordinary skin affection, was found to be suffering from leprosy. An eel landed out of Nixon's Creek, Wanganui, on Saturday last, some distance up from the river, turned the scale at 131b, was 141n in girth, and 4ft long. There was a fairly sharp frost at Palmerston the other night, which did some little damage to gardens where young plants were not sufficiently protected. A phenomenon in the shape of a brilliant meteor in broad sunlight was witnessed at Feilding at about four o'clock last Friday afternoon. It travelled towards the southeast. A novel idea is to be carried out in Neutral Bay, Sydney, a Melbourne insurance company building houses for people insuring with the company, the premiums to take the place of rent. According to the Wakefield correspondent of the Nelson Colonist, hopgrowers axe busy, but with heavy hearts. Last year's prices have hit hard, and some talk of selling ou* or grubbing up. On October 21 Guiseppe Sprea, a seaman on the Italian ship Ascensione, fell from the vessel on to the wharf at Newcastle, and died in the hospital the next day from concussion of the brain. Writing to a friend in It i vert on, a Sydney lady says that pneumonia, measles, and that modern scourge, influenza, have carried off scores of people in Sydney. Influenza was worse there this year than ever before. The coal which is to furnish the Discovery for her explorations in Antarctica has been ordered from the Westport Coal Company. The vessel will be filled with Westport coal in about the middle of this 1 month.

The demand for first-class dairy cows In the Hawera district continues undiminished. Two farmers on the plains attended a sale recently, each of them wanting to purchase about 30 cows, but. every animal was sold under the hammer, and at pretty high prices, too. A tame ferret caused a commotion in a street in Wellington recently. It was discovered trying to make its way under the door of a shop. It was promptly assailed with walking-sticks and other weapons, and was finally crushed beneath a constable's foot. By-and-by the owner arrived, and then there was lamentation. A railway fireman named Raynard Smith was attempting to mount an engine in motion at the Eveleigh yards. Sydney, on October 20, when he fell, and the wheels passed over his left leg, almost severing the foot. The Civil Ambulance Brigade took him to Sydney Hospital, where the injured limb was amputated just below the knee.

An authority states (says a correspondent of the Wellington Times) that Wairarapa fanners will never profit by the bacon industry until more care is taken with the pigs. Instead of being housed and nurtured, the animals are allowed to roam anywhere. This has a deteriorating effect on the flesh, and makes the hides thick and tough. One cr two Otaki settlers recently ascertained that a number of crows frequented the river, and as these birds prey on the trout— reward of Is 6d per pair being offered for their destruction by the Acclimatisation Societythey set out in quest , of them, and succeeded in shooting no less than 16 pairs of crows, the heads and feet of/which were sent to Wellington.