NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14924, 23 February 1912, Page 8

NEWS IN BRIEF.

For it men arrested for drunkenness occupied tho police cells hist, night. Mahuta, and a number of Maoris, left Huntlv on Thursday for Cambridge, to attend" tho tangi held in consequence of the death of a septuagenarian thief, who died at Maungatautari.

A petition having been presented to His Excellency the Governor praying that the district of Pukekoho should he constituted a borough, those having objection to, or petitions against such a constitution being granted, are called upon to lodge them within one month.

' A single voting man named Joseph_Mc Alullen,"wko was employed by the Kauri Timber Company, met with a slight accident yesterday. He fell between two logs, and sustained an injury to his left ankle, which necessitated his removal to the hospital.

There will be only one Supreme Court sitting in Auckland to-day, viz., that presided over by Mr. Justice Edwards. This judge will leave to-morrow for Hamilton where he will take the local sittings of the Court next week. Mr. Justice Chapman will sit at Auckland to-morrow.

Last week, a camping party on the North Beach, Westport, secured what must be a local record of fish for one haul (says a Westport paper). . With a single operation of their trawl net they landed 635 kawhai. Four hours were occupied in clearing the net. The fish were caught at the junction of the Orawhiti River with the sea. A member of a firm of manufacturers of drilling plant, at New Plymouth, states that his firm intends to erect largo works in Now Plymouth for the purpose of supplying plants, of which ho is convinced a largo number will scon be running, since the oilfield is attracting attention in America and elsewhere. He is reporting on a property for an Auckland syndicate. They are teaching lambs bad habits at the Ruakura farm of instruction, where all this season's lambs have become tobaccochewers. The experiment is being tried of feeding tobacco leaves steeped in brine as a cure for internal parasites. The lambs take to the tobacco greedily, and thrive on the treatment. The manager is not sure about tobacco curing parasites, but thinks it may be to some extent a preventative. Mr. D. Petrie, ex-chief inspector of schools for the Auckland district, who has just been on a visit to Mount Egmont, remarket! to a Taranaki News reporter that a most remarkable thing about the flora was that numbers of Southern plants, particularly those known as cedars, which in the parts of Otago where they were to be found attained an ordinary growth, grew at the mountain to an unprecedented size. In the South ho had never seen cedars half tho sifts of those in tho upper portion of the forest reserve, between 2000 ft and 3000 ft above the sea level.