NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11951, 28 April 1902, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

'Frisco mail due to-day. • Outward 'Frisco mail gone. . Elingamite due from Sydney. Zealandia for Sydney this evening. A cheese factory is projected in the Oroua district. ,„ _ . . . The Indralema from .New York and Australia is due to-day. An epidemic of influenza is now paying Cromwell, Otago, an unwelcome visit. The flagship Royal Arthur left for the North and Sydney on Saturday evening. • A trout weighing 214 ib, and measuring 35in in length, was caught in the Opihi last The amount of uncollected Wellington, rates at end of financial year (31st alt.) was

£6175. . ~ ■ One paddock of oats belonging to Mr. J. Holmes, Fortrose, Otago, threshed out 116 bushels to the acre. It is reported that the Labour party will run a candidate for the Buller district at the neA general election. The Wairca (Hawke's Bay) County Council have sent in a list of wants to the Government totalling £30,600. It is stated that the Woodvtlle Rifles expend more money on ammunition than any 'ether two corps in the colony. In the Opotiki and Whakatane districts there are some 146 old age pensioners, to ■whom over £2600 is annually paid. A large quantity of maize has arrived from the Bay of Plenty, the greater portion of •which will be shipped to Sydney. - Pheasants and Californian quail tire plentiful this year between Hamurana (Rotorua) and the entrance to the Ohau. Up to the present time the Eltham Cooperative Daily Company has paid suppliers £25,000 for milk during the past season. The natives at Rotoiti, Rotorua, and several other places, have issued notices prohibiting the shooting of game in their districts. The mail steamer Ventura, which left for San Francisco on Saturday, had a record number of passengers, there being 358 in all classes. The dredging returns to date in Otago for the present year show an increase of over 30 per cent, as compared with the same period last year. . The necessity for an accommodation-house in the neighbourhood of the Waimangu geyser has been brought to the notice of the Tourist Department. Fishing in the Waipoua River the other evening, Mr. Arthur Williams, of Masterton, succeeded in capturing 35 fair-sized trout in about two hours. y On March 31 the Kaitangata relief fund showed a credit balance of £3251 18s. During the year ended April 4 the sum of £432 9.5 4d was paid out to 16 beneficiaries. About three years ago the Wellington Education Board erected a school building in the Mungapakeha Valley, The school still stands, but, so far, it has not been used. Several Dannevirke residents generously subscribed, and collected funds for the purpose of buying a section of land whereon to build a cottage for a widow and her family. "According to Maori custom, if a perse charged with an offence acknowledges his guilt we always deal leniently with hini," remarked a native witness in the Gisborne Supreme Court. •' Tasmania has sent 734 men and officers to the front. They have gained two "Victoria Crosses, two C.B.'s, three ' Distinguished Orders, and three Distinguished Conduct medals. Three lads, named Rowney, Shi'/, and Smith, aged seven years, were playing with a pea-rifle at Blayney, New South Wales, when the,weapon went off, the bul'ret entering Smith's head above the right oye. Mrs. W. G. Scott, of Onehung*, was the tasteful designer and provider of t,he bouquet in Coronation colours presented to the Countess of Eanfurly at the annual meeting of the St. John Ambulance Association last week. ? Two ,i the naval officers vi/iting Rotorua last week went expressly to -zee Waimangu, aid calmly awaited an eruption for two whole days, when their patience arid determination were rewarded by a magnificent display of this wonderful geyser. At the meeting of the Farmers' Union, at Mr. Harding stsfted that the nun)- ; b(ir of members was no\/r 23.000, and that the Trades and Labour 'Unions numbered ll;t,000. He stated that.the Farmers' Union, hud 350 branches in Now Zealand. A son. of Mr. J. Lev/is, of Greytown, met with a painful accident recently. He took a flask of powder and placed a quantity in the lid of a cocoa tip,, applied a match, and by the explosion which followed was badly , scorched about the head and face. Further improvements are being carried •/nit, in the Rotorua Sanatorium grounds. The pines and acacias are being cut down along the Queen'h Drive, and men are engaged trenching the ground which, on completion, will be, planted with flowers and A shrubs. -t

Two - ' handsome candelabra—one to the memory of their late commander, Captain Richard J. Sinner, and the other to the memory of h/s daughter—have been placed on. either sid<j of the Communion table in St. Thomas' Church, North Sydney, by the officers of the Newcastle steamship Namoi. The pretty little gulls called Tarapuhga by the Maoris are very plentiful on Lake Rotorua, and have been protected for some years, but recently a number of dead and wounded birds have been seen floating on the lake, no doub't the result of some would-be sportsman getting his hand in for the first of .May. The Wellington Evening Post recently stated that 4500 sheep had been driven overland from Hawke's Bay to Wellington, and that not a sheep was lost on the journey. A Mftsterton drover doubts the accuracy of thisfctatement. He says the thing is almost impossible, unless settlers on the line of scute subscribed to the flock.