LATE HEW ZEALAND NEWS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11872, 9 June 1909, Page 6

LATE HEW ZEALAND NEWS.

(Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. /At a meeling of the Board of luluca tion, strong exception was taken to tlu statemenLof the .Minister for Education regardirig^iree school books. It wa. stated' tliat the grant offered to tin Board was sufficient to provide only thu books deemed hecetoary, which parent: had willingly provided nitherto/ but be fore a grant can be made the Ministe: insists on the Board certifying thatnom of the pupils who are to have Tree booßt have been asked or required to buy am additional reading book which 'the gran, ■would not provide, but which all concerned oolasidered indispensable. It wai resolved to co-operate with other Boardi. to have a more reasonable course fol lowed. WELLINGTON, this day. Judgment was given, to-day by Mi Riddeli, S.M., m the case Janies Hani, charged with having used Willis street on April 29 for the purpose of bookmaking contrary to the city" by-laws. The defence was that the money which had passed between the defendant and several men was money which was being repaid by men who had borrowed small sums at various times. Defendant admitted that he was a bookmaker, but said he Was also an employeA in* the coal business, and had an ordinary transaction m the street with some of his men. ~ Detective Cassells described accused as "a walking tote." His Worship entered a conviction, and imposed a tone of £3 and costs. At the Magistrate's Court to-day, Peter Williamson Tait was committed for trial on a charge of assaulting David McCall and * Martha Munday m a boarding house oil May 28. " Tuitand MeCall quarrelled about a letter the former had given the latter. fb* deliver. , Tait called McCall names, whereupon McCall struck Tait, who, it is. alleged, stabbed McCall, several times with a knife. Mrs Munday, the landlady,- m attempting to separate the men. was stabbed on " the leg. Accused pleaded not .guilty. ' The new Public Trust offices, erected at a cost of £42,000, were,, formally opened to-day by the Prime-M inister, m \the presence of *y representative gathering. The proceedings took the form of -a luncheon, the Public Trustee' (Mr Poynton) being m the chair. Sir Joseph Ward proposed tlie toast of prosperity to'the Public Trust Office. He said that estates to the value of nearly ££,000,000 were under the office's administration. He paid a- tribute to the late Sir Juli.us Yogel who had originated! the office. Sketching the career of tho Department, Sir Joseph Ward said that m its second year the office became self -supporting., and now had an annual excess of profits of about £10,000. |ii spite of large concessions made m recent yearsi. A fourth of the profits went to the reserve fund, but the Government had nevep exercised: its privilege of taking three-fourths of. the profits into the consolidated fund. All it had taken wat about £38,000, and the cost of the new offices would: be paid for out of profit, tn. conclusion, he suggested the possibility of future reductions . m the charge* to those who did business with the Department. TIMARU, this day. , The sittings of the Supreme Court concluded to-day. A , decree nisi war granted m the case Jverr y. Kcrr, wife's' petition, on the garound of cruelty and drunkenness. DUNEDIN, this day. When an application came before the Licensing Committee this morning for a bottle license, the- committee refused the application on tho ground 1 that they doubted their jurisdiction tq deal with these licenses.