NEWS BY WIRE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1855, 10 June 1887, Page 12

NEWS BY WIRE.

The Gazette notifies the appointment of IF, W. F. Geisow, J. Reid, and L. Hotop as trusteei of the Queenstown Athenaeum. J. M^Kechnie is appointed 1 registrar of births, deaths, and marriages, also vaccination inspector in the Duntroon district ; and R. A. Johnston to be lieutenant of of the North Dunedin Rifles.

The following officers of the New Zealand Militia and late Armed Constabulary forces are notified as being posted to the Permanent Militia and Field Artillery :— Major Gascoigne and. Captain Baker to the Torpedo Corps; Lieutenant Lodder to the Engineers ; Lieutenant Falconer to the Rifles; Major Tuke and Captain Capel Coleman to the staff. New Zealand war medals have been issued to D. E. Campbell, colour-sergeant No. 2 Company Third Waikato Militia ; Mark Hassau, sergeant Auckland Rifles; Chas. Hesketh, lieutenant No 3 Company Auckland Rifles; Thomas Lowder, lance-corporal No. 2 Company Armed Constabulary force.

By a letter from London, received this English mail, it is gathered that the owners of the Blackball coal property, West Coast, which was acquired some time ago by people in England, are making arrangements for commencing operations by first of all establishing communication between Nelson creek and the Blackball coal outcrop by means of a railway bridge. The outcrop is 21ft thick, with an enormous face of coal uncovered.

A labourer named Charles Hamiltonjwasjfound dead in the yard at the back of his house at Sydenham on Thursday morning. Heart disease is the supposed cause of death. The Christchurph Board of Education have passed a resolution affirming the desirability of night schools being established, and appointed a committee to inquire into the subject and report.

The Kanieri Licensing Committee, the majority of which are Good Templars, refused seven applications for renewals— two at Kanieri, two at Rimu, one at Kanieri Forks, one at Koka* tahi, and one at the Three Mile Bush. In the case of the last three no licensed house is within miles. No reason was assigned for the action, and no indication of such an intention had been disclosed. The police reported favourably in each case.

A case interesting to hotelkeepers was decided in the R.M. Court at Christchurch on Tuesday. A charge of supplying liquor on Sunday against Mr Symmonds, licensee of the Oxford Hotel, was dismissed on the ruling in a case in the Scotch Court of Session, Murray v. M'Dougall, wherein the judge held that when ft lodger ordered liquor from a barkeeper and gave it to a friend, the person supplying the liquor did not infringe the law. Another interesting case was that of a boy hi:- years old, an illegitimate child, who had been left by his mother with one Naylor, she paying £5 and promising to assist in his maintenance. Instead of doing so, she went to Australia. Mr Bcetham, R.M., said there was nothing to force Naylor to keep the child, though it was establishing a dangerous precedent to send the boy to Burnhain, as all that people need to do in> such circumstances was to arrange for thetemporary charge of. children, abscond, and! leave them a charge on the State.