NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11887, 12 February 1902, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

i&SH;. ■■■ Wednesday . " Mararoa left for the South. Mimiro arrived from London and Aus-

The mail steamer Sierra left San Francisco for Auckland over three days behind ■ The total ■ amount of outstanding rates owing to the Masterton Borough Council, is at present £738 4s 9d. '■'•■■ On January 31 Arthur J. Turnbull, a clerk,; was"' drowned while bathing in a Mulgoa dam, New South Wales. A £10 note was passed over the counter of a Clutha bank the other day endorsed: " The last of £1000—beware of women." A block of 5700 acres in the Waihone &nd TiSfen survey districts, situated in the Wellington Land District, is declared a State forest. The Arawa Native Council is to meet at "Matata during the present month to draw up regulations for the management of the settlement there. An old man named Alex. Kennedy was found in the. Howlong Road, near Albury, New South , Wales, on January 30, in a state of exhaustion from starvation. The temperature in Nelson on one _ afternoon during last week registered 115 in the sun." It got as high as 101 before noon, and did not fall below 66 during the night. While two men were at work on a building at Bathurst, New South Wales, the scaffolding gave way., The men were precipitated a' distance of 17ft, and one had a leg broken. The Postmaster-General, replying to a deputation on the West Coast, said that the system of keeping telegraph offices open to, midnight had been a failure throughout the colony. . The Mackay (Queensland) Chambei of Commerce has passed resolutions asking for further protection for the sugar industry, on account of the early withdrawal of Polynesian. labourers. Last year the Goulburn Pastures and Stock Protection Board, New South Wales, expended nearly £2300 in payment for scalpii of noxious animals. Of these 128,000 were hares, and 121,000 rabbits. Speaking of the sanitary condition of the borough, an alderman at the Alexandria Council, Sydney, asserted that he knew of a case in which eight or nine goats, some fowls, and a woman ate and slept in the same room. The proud boast wa-s made by the Mayor of Wellington the other night that there was no, city in New Zealand—indeed, he was going to say, in the Australasian colonieswith its sanitary conditions in so perfect a state as those of Wellington. Seven cows for 651b of butter per week with a full and plentiful supply of cream and milk for a farmhouse is not bad. Such is the last few weeks' returns (says the Tasmanian Agricultural Gazette) on an : agricultural farm in the Evandale district, without a separator, and three of the seven are first-calf. _ Nelson, which last week celebrated its sixtieth . birthday, claims recognition as being the first place in the colony to establish a free system of educationfree to this extent, that by the imposition of a small " household tax" on every person, bachelors included, no child was denied proper schooling.' One night last week someone entered the vinery at Mr. F. Penty's residence, Salamanca Road, Wellington, and sawed off every vine close to the ground. In order to make his spiteful work thorough, the intruder used his saw to cut through some timber which was protecting the lower parte of the vines. .A slug of gold, weighing 141b troy, has been found in the dyke formation being worked by the -Knowles' Creek Company, Enoch's Point, Victoria, by means of a tunnel. The " specimen" is one of several .slugs—the others being of smaller dimensionsobtained during the last half-year. • The Inspector-General of Schools (Mr. G. Hogben) returned to Wellington on Thursday, from his first official visit to the Chathams. While at the islands he conducted a 'civil service examination, and inspected the schools in the six centres. The total number of European, Maori, and half-caste, children of school age is only 90, and at no school, are there more than 30.