NEWS ITEMS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9171, 13 June 1901, Page 4

NEWS ITEMS.

The steamer Kirklee has been chartered to load produce m this colony for South Africa. During April the Mount Morgan mine, Queensland, crushed 20,612 tons for 7758 ounces gold, valued at £4 per ounce. The Salvation Array at Dunedin in-, tends to provide free tea for 500 of the poor children during the Royal visit. Divorce suits are more numerous m New Zealand lately, but for numbers Sydney heads the list, 29 case 9 being listed at last sittings. On April 14th, during the voyage of the Rakaia from London to Hobart, William Morden, aged 65, a seaman and lamp-trimmer, died of blood-poisoning, resulting from an injury to his foot. He was buried at sea. A fatal tramway accident occurred m Sydney, when an elderly lady, who endeavored to cross the line behind one tram and halted m front of another, was run down by an electric tram, and killed almost instantaneously. Two residents of Stowport (Tasmania) named Rutherford have made an important copper discovery m the locality where they reside. Assays give from 15 to 20 per cent, copper and soz to 7oz of silver per ton. The extreme heat, intensified by dead calms, experienced by the Delphic when crossing the equator, while on the voyage from London to the Cape, resulted m the death of 44 of the 497 remounts which were being taken to South Africa. A correspondent of the Invercargill Southern Cross thinks that the prevalence of cancer might well be inquired into by medical commission. He states that there are five cases m Invercargill just now, and there were two deaths from cancer at the Bluff recently. At Maryborough (Victoria), Walter Williams, aged 66, m receipt of the old age pension, met his death by falling from a chair into a fire. He was too infirm to recover himself, and when discovered the body was charred almost beyond recognition. The trawler Doto, which was chartered by the Government for the experiment of trawling round the New : Zealand coast, is at work again for her owners, the Nelson Pishing Company. The results of her operations m Nelson waters since the Government charter-.expired are considered very satisfactory. ' ■=. The fire engine which the secretary of the Wellington Harbor Board -ordered when m London has, according to advice just received, undergone severe tests, and given satisfaction, and arrangements have been made for its immediate shipment. The engine ordered forHfae City Council is well advanced towards completion. About noon on Monday last, as passengers were beginning to board the Kotorua, which was to have sailed frdm Wellington for Picton and Nelson half an hour later, steam was seen' issuing from the engine-room. It was discovered that the belt had come off her boilers. Steam had. to be blown off, necessitating the steamer's detention m port till repairs could be effected. She was kept back till Thursday. A Renter's message of March 20 from Mauritius states that on March 22> the steamer Taher, with a crew of 85 men and a cargo of Bait and grain, was driven by heavy seas on the rocks near Barkley Islet and completely wrecked. More than 35 persona were drowned. The Colonial Secretary (Sir Graham Bower) was present on board the steamer Stellal, and assisted m directing the work of rescue. Captain Tyndall, of the Taher, was. saved, but was severely injured m the legs, and at the date of the message lay. very ill m. hospital. Goubet No. 2, the new French . submarine boat, has been made the Bubject of several experiments, some of which have been officially declared to be satisfactory. Independent reports are not quite so glowing. The Echo de Paris states that while the boat was moving under water her dome could be distinctly seen, and her speed was less than four knots per hour. When the boat is submerged, unless the sea be perfectly calm, nothing can be seen by means of the optical tube. When about 70 miles out from Las Palmas on her way from London to Australia and New ' Zealand, the Tyser s.s. Star of England sighted a schooner flying the Spanish ensign half-mast at the fore. The steamer .bore down upon her to see what she wanted, and ascertained that she had been becalmed for 16 days, and had run short of fresh water — & want which Captain Ulyatt supplied. The master of the schooner also wanted the magnetic course for Teneriffe, as he had lost all reckoning. The Tyser steamer arrived m Melbourne last week with an immense cargo of explosives, 230 torn m all, for that port. She had also 1100 tons of merchandise for Melbourne, and quantities for Sydney and New Zealand ports. There is an extraordinary shortage of Wwtport coal at the present time, and dealers m Wellington are at their wits' end to supply the wants of their customers. The retailers, who obtain their supplies from ' the Westport Coal Company, assert that the Company ought not to supply large quantities to the Admiralty, whilst the Wellington householders are left to suffer a famine. Against this the Company say that they Lave entered into contracts with the Admiralty, which must be fulfilled, and that even if there were no contract at all it would be manifestly impossible to refuse to supply His Majesty's warships whenever they wanted coal. Moreover, they have during the first five months of the year .supplied more coal to thfc Wellington retailers than m the corresponding period of any previous year. At a meeting held on Saturday m the Normal School, the Christchurch section of the Educational Institute adopted the following amended report on the introduction of manual and technical ' instruction into the primary schools during school hours. The subjects recommended for instruction are as below: — I. Infants : (1) Modelling m plasticine ; (2) drawing m chalk; (3) any selection of kindei-garten exercises as laid down by the syllabus. 11. Standards I. and II. : (1) The same subjects as for infants, with : the addition of brushwork.- HI. Standard HI. (1) Modelling m clay or plasticine ; (2) brushwork ; (3) drawing m chalk or charcoal. IV. 'Standard IV.: j (1) Subjects as m Standard 111. A furfher general recommendation is made to teachers that the subjects be introduced gradually, first m the lower classes and later on m the upper. V. Stan- ] dards V. and VI. : (1) Modelling or design ; (2) wood-carving ; (3) first aid and ambulance; (4) first aid and nursing; (5) selected subjects from B (vide syllabus) ; (6) cottage gardening; (7) swimming and life-saving ; (8) " woodwork ; (9) cooking and laundry work, ( including dressmaking for girls. A ' general recommendation is made that i "one hour and a half, .instead of two i hours per week, should be made sufficient to earn the grant." It was further agreed "that the above resolutions have been passed by the section on the. understanding that a substantial reduction m the amount of work required m each standard will be made by the Education Department."

The Norddeutscher Lloyd have ordered of the Rickmer's Shipbuilding Company of Geestemunde a second cadet training ship. She is to be a four-masted barque of 3000 tons. A scheme has been proposed m Natal for the improvement on a very large wale of Durban Harbor, the port of tae j colony. The cost of the undertaking, ; which will quadruple the shipping capa- j cities of the present harbor, is estimated at £3,000,000. It is stated that two steamers now building at New London, Connecticut, for James J. Hill's Great Northern Steamship Company, for trans-Pacitic service j from Seattle, will be larger than the new White Star liner Celtic, having a load displacement of 38,400 tons, against the Celtic's 36,700 tons. They will have large passenger! accommodation. The amount of compensation for services rendered by the Hew Zealand Shipping Company's steamer Tongariro m towing the Norham Castle to Ascension Island has been settled for £3500. The length of the tow was 521 miles, and the Tongaxiro steamed an extra 683 miles, and lost four days m consequence of the deviation. The presence of five warships m Auckland Harbor last week gave it an appearance which it has not had for many years past; m fact, so many warships have not assembled m the Waitemata since the visit of the flying squadron with H.R.H. the late Duke of Edinburgh. Considerable interest was taken by the general public m the warships and their movements, a large crowd assembling on the wharf during the afternoon to view the ships and the landing of the crews m the launches and rowing boats from the vessels. The total gross tonnage of merchant ships chartered by the Government for the conveyance of troops, stores, horses, etc., to the Cape amounted to over 1,600,000, or 210,000- tons m excess of the total steamer tonnage of France and Russia combined. Of steamers of 100 tons and upwards Liverpool supplied tonnage as follows : Elder, Dempster, nine ships, 52,164 tons; Cunard Company, six ships, 38,414; Leyland line, four ships, 36,756; White Star line, four ships, 33,272; Allan line, five ships, 29,559; Dominion line, five ships, 28,019; Johnston line, four ships, 26,538. — Dunedin Star. Thousands of the general public availed themselves of the opportunity of paying a visit to the Royal yacht Ophir. Special steamers plied to and fro' from the various quays during the whole of the afternoon, and the watermen 'with their skiffs made hay while the sun shone. In Melbourne, when the Ophir was on view, some .-of the visitors pocketed tassels and little bits of the hangings m the Ito^-al apartments, with a view of preserving some souvenir of the Duke's visit. On this occasion the authorities closed the private portion of the ship to inspection by the Sydney visitors. With reference to the loss of horses belonging to the Wairarapa Mounted RitUb, the H.B. Herald writes: A wellknown authority on horses who saw the dead bodies of the animals which died at Tarawera last week, belonging to the Wairarapa Mounted Rifles, assures us that the horses were not killed through drinking any poisonous water. The fact of the matter is, he says, the horses of the Maori troopers were soft and green, and after undertaking a very long journey were allowed to over-gorge themselves with oats, and then they were permitted to drink at the stream as long as they liked Hence several of them succumbed. The Charleston Herald gives . publicity to the following: It may be interesting to some people to know that the criminal libel law supposed to be m force m New Zealand is probably a dead letter, and Chief Justice Stout is of the opinion that the Criminal Code of 1893 made a clean sweep of all criminal law except such as was contained within itself. It makes no mention of libel, and abolishes , all common law offences, but not offences created by statute. It was clearly understood that the common law crime of libel was was done away with, but since the code was enacted there have been several criminal prosecutions under -the English Act, which was supposed to be m force here. We presume that the' point of the Chief Justice's doubt which he will ask theCourt of appeal to solve is whether the statute is not also repealed by implication. The right of a wronged person to recover damages for a libel upon himself is untouched, but it will be interesting to find that there is no such thing as criminal libel. The following anecdote is sent to a London paper by an officer serving m the Transvaal, where it has gone the round of the camps. It naturally lacks official confirmation, but happily^ this* does "not affect its merits as a story. "They tell a story of Botha's and Kitchener's meeting about terms of peace last week. At the end Botha said, 'Well, I must be going.' Kitchener replied, 'No hurry, you haven't to catch a train.' 'But that's just what I have got to do,' said Botha, and two days afterwards a train was held up and looted on the Delagoa line, not very far from the place of meeting." I Basing his remarks upon an article from the pen of Mr Trevelyan, M:P., who some time ago visited the colony, on "the splendidly democratic legislation which the New Zealand Parliament has been engaged upon for some years pasi." Mr William Redmond, M.P., referring more particularly to "the land," says: "Is it not this very New Zealand system of planting the people on the soil which is so badly wanted m Ireland, especially intheweat?"