OMNIUM GATHERUM

Otago Witness, Issue 2667, 26 April 1905, Page 12

OMNIUM GATHERUM

An agitation has been started in Wellington to form an anti-opium league. ' The rateable value of the Borough of Ashburton for 1905-6 has been fixed at £25,031. ! The South Canterbury Hospital Board on the 18th accented a tender at £2179 for ' the erection in brick of an infectious diseases hospital. An old-age pensioner was refused a re- , newal of bis pension at Wanganui on Friday ! on the ground that his wife had received a j legacy of £100. | It was stated at a meeting last w-eek that j the damage don© by the earthquake la&t j year had cost thd- Wellington City Council 1 more than £1200- I

The Bastings Standard has teen informed that a ■well-known gentleman m Hastings intends to provicte a site for a hospital, and also on* for a park.

Two fishermen were charged at the Auckland Police Court with selling 1 bad fish. They were fined £1 each and 12s costs, or 14 days' imprisonment.

Complaints are being madfe that some of the workmen on the Midland railway are only making 4s 6d per day, in consequence of the hard nature of the work.

The Rev. Mr Hutson's successor in charge of the Presbyterian Church at Stratford will probably by the Rev. J. Thomson, of Lincoln, 14 miles from Christchurch.

No tender was accepted for the lease of the Palmerston railway refreshment rooms. Pending fresh arrangements, the rooms are being carried on by Mr Smith, the previous tenant.

Seven residents of Cobden and 11 of Greymouth were found on licensed premises after hours by the police on Saturday night. They were to be .charged with f.ie" offence on Monday.

Notice- appears in the Gazette of th*» intention of the Crown to take eompulsorily (under the Land for Settlements ConrolicUtion Act) the Kinloch Estate in the Little River district.

There are now 60 patients at the Consumptive Sanatorium at- Hamilton, Waikato. Several cases are awaiting an opportunity to be accommodated there, but the Sanatorium is now full.

In one of the registered letters stolen at the Amberley Post Office was cash to the value of £5 sent by a woman r,ot in good circumstances The Government refund does not exceed £2.

The consolidation of the New Zealand statutes, upon which Mr W. A. Joliffe, Crown Law Draughtsman, la engaged, is expected to be ready for presentation to Parliament in 1906.

The Westport Coal Company has found the 100-ton hulk Rowena too small for the bunking business at Timara, and it has bought a 400-ton barque at Newcastle to replace the Rowena.

The rainfall in Auckland for March was a trifle in excess of the average for tnat month recorded during the past 35 years. The mean temperature was 2-10ths of a degree over the average mean. The Woodyille Examiner says that it is accessary to send Mr J. Shore, who was injured in the gas explosion last week, to Wellington, where an operation for the removal of one eye will bs performed. A rain storm which set in at Napier on Monday evening, 17th. developed during the course of the nigL't into the fiercest gale experienced there for some y«ars. The river* were in flcod, but no damage is reporbed.

Ib transpired in the Nelson Magistrate's Court (saj'-s the Colo. list) that a constable in a back-block district of the North Island had forwarded an affidavit tf proof of ser■\ice of a summons before it had actually been served.

Mr J. R. Sftansell stated at the banquet at Shannon last week that there was timber in the district to last for 20 yoais. There was one block of virgin bush" at rh" bark of the town covering 40C0 acres, and other areas almost as largo. The new operating theatre at the Auckland Hospital will ho ready for use in the course of a few weeks. Evpprts who have visited <~h-e hospital state that it will bo ono of the most complete and best-equipped theatres in the colony.

Herbert Hunter, drscribed by the police as a bad ruffian, was sentenced to three ITiiwaths' imprisonment for vi«inp! otae<^n« longuaige in Taranaki ~tre«t, Wellington. He was given an additional month for resisiing the arresting constable.

Sir John See, the late Premier of New South Wales, who retired from active polities some time ago, and' who arrived in Auckland a few days aojo, is atout to make a tour of the colony. After visiting Rotorua *■« sroes to Wellington overland, and from

there t j ih > s-'ur/i. H<? returns to the Commonwealth via the Bluff.

The annual retriijs show that the old-age pensions in the Invorrargll! district number 609. as against 612 at the close cf last year, and thnt ihe amount -expended during the year war, £10.1G9, compared with £10.185 in 190- 1 . The claims received during, the year jusc closed numbered 73, these established 54, nine being rejected, and the 10 others standing over.

Several Kingrisdovvn farmers have complained to the Timaru Herald lately of the serious depredations made amongst their poultry for gome time past by thieves. One man has lost 15 fefe ducks and rcostera in about a fortnight, the thieve^ turning up about twice a week and taking on an average three a night. The farmers are arranging to try and lay the offenders by the heelsv-

A new railway carriage, which is similar to the type in use in the North Island, and which has just been built at the Ad-ding-fcon Workshops, was tested on Fi - iday afternoon. Thp carriage is of the same length as the large" carriages now in use, but is somewhat broader. Its carrying capacity is 72 passengers. It is intended to run the new carriage on the LytfcelionChristchurch section.

There, are naw 102 artisans and 1867 labourers engaged on railway construction under tiic Public Work -5 Department. They are distributed as follows : — Kawa-kawa-Grahamstown, 17 ; Helensville northward. 71 ; Paeroa-Waihi, 157 ; GisborneKaraka, 60; North Island Main Trunk, 922; Mount Egmont branch. 46; WaiparaCheviot, 168; Midland. 226; HokitikaRcss, 25; Coal Creek. 36; N<raherp-Black-ball, 27; Otago Central. 176; Heriot extension, 38.