NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12069, 12 September 1902, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

I'araWERA from the South to-day. Titania for Wellington this morning. There are at present 28 gas engines at work in Palmerston North. The Taratahi dairy factory, Carterton, shipped 140 tons of cheese this season. At Parkes, New South Wales, meat is mow 9d per lb; butter, 2s per lb ; and chaffy £10 a ton. Complaints of the robbery of flowers from graves in the Masterton cemetery still continue.

Poultry-raising has become very popular in Hastings since the formation "of an association there.

A special order made by the Whangarei County Council has been gazetted, merging Kensington road district in the county . The bot fly is again in evidence. A butcher's trap horse in Masterton succumbed last week, and was found to ha full of the grubs. Laud on the Waimate Plains is very dear at present, owing to the dairying industry, and quite a number of farms are changing hands at big prices. Nearly 1000 tons of flax were graded in Wellington by the Government experts last month, or about seven times as much as in August last year. The Maori display to be given at Covernment House, Wellington, next, month, will be in aid cf the Victoria School for Maori Girls at Auckland.

The winter season has been excellent for the dairy farmers in the Bega district. New South Wales, the results financially being the best on record. . The weather continues cold in the Wairarapa, and there is very little growth in the grass. Stock are suffering slightly in some parts of tho district in consequence. A sailor named Lars Jonsberg, while furling the mainsail of the barque Charles Racine in the Indian Ocean, on July 22, fell from the yardarm and was drowned. At Wallarobba, New South Wales, while Joseph Mate was felling a tree, a large branch dropped off and fell on him, fracturing his skull, and causing other injuries. . The Paparoa, which arrived at Wellington on Saturday from London, brought three guinea fowls, three pigeons, and four pheasants, for the Acclimatisation Society. During the forthcoming Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, consideration will be given to special reports on the question of marriage with deceased wile':? sister. ■Vhe executors of the late Mr. Timothy Hint-hcliffs estate have presented the Nelson Hospital and Charitable Aid Board with a cheque for £200, a bequest under the will.

The Victorian Government has called, for tenders for the construction of the Waranga dam, for the Goulburn Valley irrigation scheme, the, estimated cost of which is £264.000.

According to Sydney merchants the methods now employed by the Customs Department are not only oppressive and in- j quisitorial, but are doing the State a positive injury. A man named Frank Hartley wis pro- ! ceeded against at White Cliffs, New South Wales, for advocating communism during | famine time?. He was bound over to keep the peace. Certain women petitioned the Victorian j (Government not to flog the youth Purdue, whose death sentence for criminal assault was recently commuted to 15 years with I two floggings. The gold yield of New South ales for August was 1,995 crude ounces, valued at j £42,787, compared with 13,844 ounces, j valued at £48,702, for the corresponding month last year. ■ The estimated population of Queensland j on June 30 last was as follows: Males, ; 286,229; females, 228.495: total, 514,722. The estimated population on January 1, 1902, was 510,515.' A child named Grace Simpson, 18 months old, had her eye pecked by a rooster on the premises of "her father, at Haddon (Victoria), recently. It is feared she will lose the sight of the eye. At Laggan, New South WaleSi while a youth named John McCormack'was out rabbit shooting he was accidentally shot in one of his ankles. It was found necessary to amputate the foot. Four hundred thousand feet of timber were used in constructing the 27,000 cases for potatoes which are being despatched to South Africa in the Norfolk by the Department of Industries and Commerce.

" What did you go into that hotel for j the othjir day?" a woman was asked by a, lawyer in the- Wellington Magistrate's j Court, last Mondav. "To rest my legslike everyone else ! T ' was the reply. In his" report on the health of the city j of Wellington for the week ending Septem- j ber 6, Dr. Valentine states that there were I 70 cases of measles spread over 56 houses, I two cases of diphtheria, and 11 of scarlet fever. The Mayor of Inverell, New South Wales, has presented the local museum with a copy J of tho Caledonian Mercury, dated Edin- ; burgh, October 28. 1789. The copy is thus 113 years old, and is remarkably well pre- I served. According to the New Zealand Gazette j of the 4th inst., the Northern Union | Steamboat Company, Limited, has been licensed to use and "occupy a part of the foreshore of the Kaipara Harbour as a | wharf siir.

The crops in South Canterbury are now showing well above the ground, and the genial weather that has prevailed of late has promoted a healthy growth. The area under wheat and oats this year is I (says the Press) extensive, and. given a good season, a, bountiful harvest will be the result. • j According to the Southland News* New River Valley correspondent, Mr. James Drain lost his well-known prize mare Girlie on Saturday night week. She was found I dead in stable, the headstall with which ; she was tied having by some means got j round her neck, with the result that she was choked. The Oamaru branch of the Farmers' Union has decided to urge that the law j should be amended so as to provide for i a workman who is injured being compensated from the date of injury. At present the Act does not award any compensation for the first fortnight after the injury is received. The number of cases of petty theft reported at Alexandra, Otago, cf late have assumed quite alarming proportions, and scarcely a night passes but some resident tiuds himself the victim of the nocturnal thief. The latest instance is the theft of a quantity of wire netting belonging to the Borough Council. On an operation being performed on an inmate Oi one of the private hospitals in Melbourne, the surgeon extracted from the appendix 42 pellets of shot. When a boy the patient was addicted to the practice of chewing leaden shot pellets. He felt no ill-effects at the time, and the results of the habit were not manifested until recently, 25 years afterwards, whea symptoms of appendicitis presented themselves.