NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13456, 5 June 1907, Page 8

NEWS IN BRIEF.

Victoria for the South to-day. Star of Japan arrived from London and Australia. ■ - The Indradevi due from New York and Australia to-morrow.

-- A pair 'of Cape : geese : have been presented to the Canterbury Acclimatisation Society, and have been placed in the society's gardens.

~i\ According to a Wellington paper, numbers -of Wairaxapa farmers are at present drifting (into the Taranaki, Waikato, ' and, Hawkes Bay* districts. : ' :r ; The health officer at Brisbane recently seized 'in a mart in the city Bcwt of ham sausages arid : two cases of macaroni and Teririicelli as ; being unfit for food. .•; .

... 1 A Vogeltown resident has an Irish Teach .Apple tree bearing and ripening a second crop 'of . apples. Gooseberry bushes are also, in blossom in the same garden. There were no bankruptcies recorded in Wairarapa during ? May, as against none for the same month last year. "Six bankruptcies have been recorded up to June 1 for the : year, as against seven up to June 1, 1906. : . ; "' : ■■ ■"

I ''", Births in" - the New Plymouth district were ; more < numerous during "May than in April. The registrar reports 34 births (22 in. town and 12 in the country), 10 deaths (sixain the town and four in the country), i and four marriages. , ,

-Mr. C. M. Jackson, of Chertsey (says ; the Ash burton: Guardian) has already ripe raspberries -on, his farm. The canes; which were planted last spring/ are runners from a new variety * of; raspberries which was imported into the colony last year.

Before. the . Coonamble (New .South Wales) police magistrate on the 14th inst. William Pcdley, a v local cordial manufacturer,., was convicted of having: an illicit still on his premises, and was fined £100. John Mills, '-a local plumber, was . charged with having erected the still. - '\ A- fanner at Totara Flat, Westland, had a ; serious misfortune to his dairy herd of about 20 cows the other day. It appears that the animals swam the : Grey River to an island and c ate some tutu growing , thereon with I the result that all •'■ are more or less affected with the poisonous element : in- : the ,- plant, and, two of 1 the cows have died.

The Railway News (West Australia) thus summarises the main grievances of the railway employees of that State:—(l) Allowances to flying gangs ;,wheii«way from .home; (2) increments due undersold agreement, and not yet paid; (3) short payment of "certain employees in Kalgoorlie; (4) the •classification :of" storemen'and payment of proper wages ito storemen in charge. '

-* - The _.; heavy sheep-shifting occasioned by last; summer's '■ drought is 'strikingly shown "by the railway returns (says the Dunedin Star).- •■''• For the year ended , March 31, 1907, no' fewer than 506,046 sheep were trucked outwards at stations between Kurow and ;.•; Clinton, -while 335,361 were railed A ,'inwards."., During the previous year, when the traffic was normal, the figures : were only 280,259 outward and 251,372 inward. It does not pay always to ignore the tin-kettlers (says the Wairarapa Standard), j The other night a band of young fellows sallied forth bent upon tin-kettling a new-ly-married couple in the district, and very thoughtfully provided themselves with a silver teapot which they intended presenting to the newly-wedded pair. Not receiving the customary response to the "music" supplied, the young men returned to. their homes with the gift, which it is said is being reserved— the next occa- ■ sion.