SOUTHERN ITEMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11842, 20 December 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

SOUTHERN ITEMS

Wellington" City Council resolved to borrow £50.000 for street widening, and to pass a by-law against expectorating on footpaths. At a meeting in connection with the Queen Victoria memorial .ward-. for the hospital. Mayor of Wan gaum handed over a cheque for £1041, the amount ' raised by public subscription. This "will carry the usual Government subsidy of 24s per £. .. _ Voting took place at Nelson on Monday the 16th of December, throughout the whole district on a proposal to raise a special loan of £65,000 for harbour improvements. The result of the poll is as follows: For the proposal, 1174; against, 66 ; informal, 7. . The Lands Department, has been advised that some ;of the instruments made in England for the Christchurch Magnetic Observatory have' been rejected in consequence of a magnetic metal having been used in the alloy for the brass. Dr. _ Chree, > a well-known authority, is advising the Agent-General in this matter. According to a : Christchurch paper, Mr. G. Hogben has compared his seismographic records of the recent' earthquakes with those taken by Mr. C. Coleridge Farr on his magnetbgraph. The records on the two instruments agreed with regard to five or six shocks. The magnetograph lias ;e----corded 10 that do not appear on the tapes of the seismograph, but, .the latter has many marks that the former has not. I'Le Railway Department will shortly begin the creosoting of sleepers on its own account. The creosoting plant,: which it purchased some months ago from a firm in Southland, is being repaired, and the Department is calling for tenders from settlers in ' Southland for the supply of small lots of soft-wood sleepers for treatment in the plant.

The Manawatu Railway Company have been for some time contemplating replacing the Belmont viaduct with a more substantial structure. It is a wooden bridge, spanning a deep ravine, some seven miles from town, and is 160 ft in height. The first idea was to fill in the gully with earth, but it was found: the cost would be f. £15,000 to £16,000. Having heard of smart work turned out by an American company, which built ; a bridge over the Atbara in quick order, the directors sent a description': of what they wanted, and they have received complete and wonderfully exact drawings for a steel viaduct, calculated to a nicety, with the intimation that . the structure would be ready within a fortnight of receiving a cable ordering it. Landed in Wellington, duty paid, it will cost less than £4000, and the directors have decided to accept the offer.

The south-east- quarter of Christchurch was thrown into a state of excitement on Nov. 30, when something like a bombardment took place at the premises of Yee Bow and Co., Chinese storekeepers. It appears that about nine o'clock a woman living in t'-2 vicinity missed one of her little girls, agf .1 11, and traced her to the Chinaman's shop, where she, with two other girls, was pui chasing crackers. The mother jumped to the conclusion that, the Chinaman had been encouraging children to go to his place, and proceeded to give the inoffensive Mongolian a piece ofjier mind, and made grave charges against him. She then hit the child on the head with a piece of a box lid, and as the Chinaman protested she picked up a heavybox and struck him on the head. The Chinaman replied by striking the woman on the head with a bamboo walkingstick. She shrieked, and this brought a crowd round, to whom the woman told a voluble tale of the Chinaman's perfidy, with the result that several men rushed into the shop and assaulted the Mongolian. Eventually the police came on the scene, and intruders were got out and the door locked, and matters quieted down. About half-past ten, however, the woman returned with her husband, and a crowd of about 2000 people gathered,' and, in spite of a large reinforcement of police, the building was pretty well wrecked. The panels of the door were kicked in, and there was not a whole pane of glass left in the place. No arrests have been made, but the police are satisfied there is no truth in the statements of the woman as .to the Chinamen encouraging children to visit their house.

A junior clerk in the D.1.C., Christchurch, was sent to the bank with £300, on December 4. and has not been seen since.

The plans by Mr. Leslie H. Reynolds, for the improvement of Nelson . i arbour, have been approved by the Government, and an Order-in-Council has been gazetted. The committee of the Nelson Chamber of Commerce discussed the question, and resolved that in order to protect the traffic of the port, and provide for its possible increase, ' harbour improvement to urgently needed, and having regard to the approval given by the Government to the sch-.me oF Mr. Leslie Reynolds, the committee is of opinion that this scheme should be forthwith carried out. A statutory meetingwas held to consider a proposal to borrow £65,000 to cany out the work. Til.meeting wis largely attended, and -\va-3 favourable to the proposal.