NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11826, 2 December 1901, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

fiasco mail due. Suez mail arrived. Outward 'Frisco mail gone. Matatua arrived from London. Mararoa for Sydney this evening. Waikare from Sydney this morning. The mail steamer Sonoma made very good time across from Sydney. Horticultural show prize money will be paid to-day, at Arthur Yates and Co.'s. The Cardiff Dairy Company (Taranaki) ;wa fined for having an uncertificated driver of a 17 horse-power engine. Steps are being taken by the Danneyirke Borough Council to raise u loan of £6000 for a sewerage system for the. central ward. The companies of the No. 1 Battalion, 'Auckland Infantry, struck camp on Saturday, after undergoing tho annual weeks instruction under canvas at the Domain. Tauhei and Sparkling Water ran a "dead-heat for first honours in the St. Andrew's Handicap, the principal event at the Takapuna Jockey Club's Meeting on Saturday afternoon. When the first train from Waipukurau arrived at Hastings on Monday morning there was snow on the guard s van, an unusual occurrence at this season. According to a trade journal published in London, 17 cases of prime New Zealand honey, in cases containing two tins of 561b each, sold at £44 per ton. The cell accommodation at the Mount Cook police station is to be doubled. 1 [Both the new and the old cells will be cheated in winter by means of warm air. Mr. '.Richardson, Government surveyor, is about to survey a new township about five miles from Levin, on the sea beach. When it is laid out sections will be offered on 21 years' lease. Probate duty to the amount of £10,398 Was paid in Melbourne on November 22, i upon the estate of the late Thomas Bath, of Learmonth. The estate is valued for probata purposes at £163,981. During last week 100 Border Leicester utud rams and 260 Shropshire rams and ewes have arrived at Wellington for North Island breeders. The sheep were bred and despatched from Canterbury. Mr. Cruickshank, S.M., is reported to Lave stated in the Tapanui Court the other day that he recently granted an old age pension to : man who at one time was earning and spending £100 a week on the goldfields. Giving evidence before the Factories Act Commission in Sydney recently, one man who worked in a restaurant 100 hours a week for 30s, said that he had reared a family during tiir J time, and hardly knew his own children. It is stated that Mr. A. A. Fantham's (Hawera) red shorthorn bull Southern Cross, which gained second prize at the Wanganui show, is to be shipped to the Argentine. Mr. Fantham values the bull, which is only r yearling, at 300 guineas. The cutter Enchantress arrived at Port Lincoln (South Australia) on November 22, with the body of Thomas Hayter, fourth keeper of the Neptune Lighthouse, ,who had died on board at four o'clock that morning, whilst on hi." way t; obtain medical attendance. For the purpose of erecting an electric light plant, the municipal council of Sydney has purchased an extensive piece of Sand, situate in Pyrmont-street, Pyrmont, md adjoining the railway line at Darling Harbour, measuring approximately 264fb by 265 ft, foi £13,300. A peculiar disease has made its appearance among the sheep at Oakey, Queensland, large numbers going blind. The disease seems to have no after effects, the peculiar part being that good-conditioned and apparently healthy animals are the first to become afflicted. At Weraiti, near Masterton, the frog and the lark are rival songsters, and visi'tors are more curious about the former (Vocalist than the latter. There is quite a colony of frogs in a swamp on this station, descended from specimens first introduced there by Dr. Hosking. At the Perth (West Australia) Police Court on November 22, Richard * Clark Spear, the registered publishei of the Spectator newspaper, was charged with i&ving unlawfully and maliciously published a defamatory libel against Judge Parker. He was committed foi trial. An unusual sight was witnessed at Carcoar, New South Wales, last week, when a large mob of 1000 head ox store cattle passed through the town. The animals were in very poor condition, they having travelled from the back country. They nave been four months on the road. A case of stock dying from absorption .of lead in the liver and kidney tissues, through the animals licking red paint from a new painted house, has come under the notice of the Agricultural Department. The linseed oil used in the paint was the lure which brought the cows to grief. A conference representing the x'ost and Telegraph Employees' Association throughout the Commonwealth is sitting in Melbourne, discussing the Public Service Bill and the postal regulations. It has been decided to unitedly advocate certain amendments. The regulation forbidding all telegraph employees to traffic in shares or have any interest in racing clubs was specially objected to. The New Zealand Times says:—A movement is on foot to induce the Education Board to place the Masterton and ! Petone schools on the same scholarship) I list as the schools within Wellington city 1 in order to prevent them from getting, j an undue advantage over country and : suburban schools. Mr. T. R. Fleming ! has reported to the Board on the question of city scholarships.