News and Notes

Southern Cross, Volume 6, Issue 35, 10 December 1898, Page 7

News and Notes

The company formed by the members of the Industrial and Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association to secure the erection of an industrial ball for Christchurch has purchased a site of two acres in a central position. The estimated cost of land and buildings is £20,000. Mr Henry Harraway, the stalwart miller, of Dunedin and Green Island, led his ten sons in a cricket match against an eleven of the Pollard Opera Company in Dunedin last week, when the Harraways won all along the line. General Kitchener recently asked for £IOO,OOO to build a Gordon College at Khartoum, and £70,000 has already been subscribed. An armed masked burglar entered the residence of Dr Sevan, the wellknown Melbourne divine, presented a revolver at his head, and demanded and obtained his jewellery, While standing with the revolver at his head Dr Sevan questioned the intruder, who said he was an accountant with a starving wife and children. Dr Beaven offered to assist him, but the burglar preferred the jewels.

The tender of McEwan and Company has been accepted for 40,000 tons of American sheet steel for the Coolgardie water supply scheme. English and German manufactures competed. Hundreds of cattle and sheep have been roasted in the bush fires in the Bruthen and . Gambon districts (Victoria), and a number of settlers have had narrow escapes. At Lyttelton G, Ayers, tobacconist, was fined £lO and costs for having a tobacco-cutting machine without warrant.

Three hundred and twenty thousand copies or Bismarck’s biography have been sold in Germany.

The Home Life Insurance Co.’s buildings in Broadway, New York, have been burned down. The damage amounts to a million dollars.

President McKinley states that when the Cabans are pacified they will be directed to form a just, benevolent and humane government created by themselves.

The Philippine rebels demand independence, and refuse to be treated like merchandise. Financial difficulties are rendering Aquinaldo’s position as president and leader of the rebels untenable. An effort will be made to secure the arrest of Joseph Myers, who recently absconded from Wellington, after defrauding a number of people. Severe earthquake shocks were experienced at Gisborne, Kapier, and Taupo on Sunday last. The retiring trustees of the. Southland Hospital have been re-elected. Russiais spending 118 million roubles j in re-organisation of the artillery branch of her service on French models. The heat in K.S.Wffias been intense and bush fires have wrought destruc- « tion among the crops. I The death is reported from K.S.W. j of Mrs Keightly, who many years j ago rode to Bathurst to obtain ransom j for her husband, held by the bush- | rangers, and whose exploit forms J one of the episodes in Boldrewood’s j ‘ Robbery Under Arms.’ John Arthur Chapman, a young letter carrier, was charged at Christchurch with stealing 720 letters and two boxes of tobacco, the property of the Postmaster - General. The accused was remanded. At the Supreme Court, Dunedin, two residents of Gore named Robson and Baldwin were found guitly of conspiring to commit arson. The jury, however, recommended them to mercy, and Robson was sentenced to 18 months’ hard labour, and Baldwin to six months’ hard labour. The Mohommedans are deserting Crete —15,000 of the wealthiest have left within the last few weeks. Spain is in a bad way, and contend-/ ing parties are active. The priests are preaching Carlism. The French and Chinese are at variance at Shanghai, and French demands for territory will be resisted.