NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13497, 25 May 1907, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A/Sttez mail is duo to-morrow. Fife?h:re due from Britain. • Tarawera for the South to-day. . ■ YVaikare from the South to-morrow. illowera due from Sydney to-morrow. The Talune due from Fiji on Monday. The health of the Maori race is, the Native Minister states, more satisfactory than it• has been for some time. v ; -',;-. "-"•;•• Of 460 bicycles reported to the police "'"-■ as lost in the.' Christchureh district last i year only six cannot be accounted for. The Ashburton) Gas Company has deter- ; mined to stall off opposition from electricity by undertaking to supply electricity themselves. The price of gas will also be ..', reduced.' • .It is stated that,.with the exception of the line over the! Rimutakas, the steepest grade in New Zealand is along the line beyond Taihape, arid before the Wangaehu River is reached. Sugar beet grown at the Greytown public school has been tested arid found to yield ten per cent, of sugar. As the roots •h average 101b each, this means a pound of sugar to each root. • ■.There is an epidemic of measles inChrist- ''. church'; and some of the schools have been shut up on account of it. One of the '•/• hotels has had part of its premises isolat- -; .- ■ ed on account of a case occurring there. ■ Owing to the rapid increase in the num- ; • ber of bares in the county the Ashburton County Council decided at its meeting in March* to purchase tails at 3d each. Since the resolution was carried over 7500 hares' tails have been bought. v .'.,. _■ , : . The demand for white pine timber from -', Australia is very great at ,; the present time, and Greymouth millers are clearing :- ' stock at satisfactory prices. Seven vessels have been chartered to carry the timber to -Australia, and will take close on 2,000,000 superficial feet. ■:V:i V; '. r -"/■--■;''■'.■■'"■■' ■"' " ■_ ; ' '