NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12279, 25 May 1903, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Surras DAY. Fazilka left for Fiji. Talune left for the Sou Westralia .wived from Sydney. Zealandia for Sydney to-morrow. • The 'Frisco mail leaves on Friday. The foundation stone of the veterans Home is to be laid to-day. The Ova'au. which arrived from Oamaru on Saturday"night, brought 150 tons of stone to be used in the erection of St. Matthew s Church. " A North Otago farmer (Awamoa) has threshed 60 bushels of wheat and 103 bushels of oats to the acre. He has also tuber potatoes weighing 31b each. The Farmers' Union Conference held in Invercargill recently is spoken of as the largest, most enthusiastic, and most successful ever held in Southland. While a fire engine was rushing through King William-street, Adelaide, the other . night, a woman -whose name was given as Smith became confused, and was knocked down and killed. The transhipment of grain lias already begun. in Queenstown (Otago), and work is brisk on the wharf. Already seme 2000 bags of grain have been sent somewhat earlier than usual. An outbreak of typhoid fever has taken place at Pooncarie, New South Wales. The patients have been taken to Wentworth •Hospital, where it has been found necessary to increase the nursing staff. The Queensland Government has decided that the Civil servants' hours during the winter months shall be from nine a.m. to halfpast four p.m., instead of five p.m., and they will thus save the cost of gas. The estimates passed by the Oamaru Borough Council for this year include £400 for the protection of the gasworks from damage by the sea, which is eating away the foreshore in the neighbourhood of the works. The report of the South Australian Civil Service Commission on the Lands Department recommends that. 12 officers be abolished, effecting a saving of £2262 per annum. Against these are increases, leaving a net saving of £1385 per annum. The ragwort question is still agitating farmers down South. A farmer informs the Southland Times that it is a blessing in disguise. He says that if it disappears the caterpillar will attack the grain and destroy it, as happened formerly in Wanganui. A boy named Herbert Hinton was washed off the Groper Rocks, at Newcastle, New South Wales. Fortunatelv the return wave threw him against the rocks, where his foot became entangled, and thus enabled him to scramble out, unhurt, beyond a few abra- j sions.

The representatives from tbe various Victorian mining boards conferred on the question of codification of the mining by-laws which would be applicable to the whole State. A uniform set was agreed upon, but it is to be submitted to the boards for approval. It has been decided that the famous ship Samuel Plimsoll, lately in Port Chalmers, shall do duty as a coal hulk at Port- Adelaide, She was to be towed round to that port by the s.s. Duckenfield, the powerful steamer which successfully took her from Ofcago to Sydney. "Accidents," said the president of the Insurance Institute in his annual address in Wellington last! week, " are now being looked upon very much in the same light as the drawing of a prize in a sweep, and no doubt will be increasingly looked upon a3 a certain income in the event of bad or depressed times occurring." A sensational incident occurred at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane. Four boys were fishing from a sewer, when a largo body of storm water came down and washed out three of them into the river. Two managed to scramble ashore, but the other boy, named Fan - , aged seven, was carried away and Vowned.

Further cases of mysterious deaths among horses are reported from Hawker (South Australia). Death in some cases appears to be due to pneumonia. Others seem to be suffering from dietetic trouble, probably due to the long drought and the sudden growth of the grass, a3 the result of the recent heavy rains.