WELLINGTON.

Otago Witness, Issue 2861, 13 January 1909, Page 27

WELLINGTON.

It is somewhat cheering news to flaxmillers that New Zealand fibre is 30s a ton higher than machine-dressed Manila hemp. The reason is said to be that the Americans, desirous of increasing the Manila output, adopted machinery in place of the old-fashioned hand method of production. The machines, however, crush the fibre to such an extent that its value is depreciated In -other words, our flax will stand the "scutcher," but the Manila hemp will not— at all events without some damage. i Extradition wa-< granted on the 6th inst. in the cases of Herbert Thomas Cluff and ' Harry Riemenshneider, chaiged with wife desertion in New South Wales. Wilford Burgess, alias John Williams, arrested in Sydney on a charge of breaking and! entering at the Lower Hutt, and who broke gaol some days ago, pleaded guilty this morning, and was remanded to tha Supreme Court for eentsnee. For breaking gaol lie got three months. While theie has been an undasirable increase in the sale of firearms in Wellington since the garroting outrages the purchaser*, have been entirely Europeanr-. In Sydney, on the contrary, according to an account i^iven to a Post representative by a visitor returning on the Marama, the Chinese population of Sj-d---ney have be>en purchasing revolvers and small arms to an unprecedented extent. While the visitor was in a gunsmith's shop in Sydney no fewer than six Chinese , entered and made purchases of revolvers. j The propi"letor of tbs shop said this had i been going on for several months, during irliich he had sold hundreds of such ] irfapcns to the Chinese. Other gunsmiths had doiw the same. What thereason was for such a demand he dad not know. It might have been for pelf-pro-tection, but lie rather belioved that the Chinese anticipated trouble in tht-ir native Jand, and were laying in lavge stocks for fniVßglini' through. In any ca«e, it had h-een a mo.=i peculiar feature of the s e :j ■io.-i ' s b usin e«s . l^iiht hundred cases of lemons, giown : at Messina, the sosne of the lucent disas- j lious earthquake, arrived by the Sydney pir-amev on the 6th. Th- Wellington Acclimatisation Society ins v-enrtd 20 young daer irora tlie Wai- i iarajv-1 district. Th'---*? will be hand-fed i &:)d ultimately turned out in other di£1 tn.-ts. # j Walter Alexander Mi:ne, a married man, i ai;ed 38. shot himself behind the ear with \ a revolver, and lies in a precarious state j at the hospital. There is little hope of his recovery. Milne was for a time a store- ; keeper at Manakau, and 18 months ago , came to Wellington with his wife, from whom he had since separated. Between Saturday night and Monday the Customs office of the Postal Department was burglariously entered and the safe broken open, presumably by explosives. The safe contained registered letters, stamps, and cash amounting to £34, and stamps valued at £66. Thet-e were all taken.