News and Notes.

Southern Cross, Volume 8, Issue 32, 1 December 1900, Page 3

News and Notes.

The New Zealand census is to be taken on 31st March, 1901. Two technical school instructors are to be appointed in N.Z. at a salary of £360 each.

A section of the Gore burgesses are protesting against the new post office being erected on the site known as the railway gardens. The fruit crops in the Roxburgh district give promise of being about the largest known. The strawberry season will be in full swing in about a fortnight. There has been heavy general rain throughout New South Wales, with electrical disturbances. At Granville a hoy named Dawes was killed by lightning.

On Sept 24, the Queen’s reign exceeded by just four years the duration of that of King George 111., whose occupancy of the throne had till the reign of her Majesty been the longest in English history. For issuing and certifying to false balance-sheets the officials and auditors of a bank in the Isle of Man haye been sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from five years to six months.

Goss, the man whoe stole £60,000 ■worth of banknotes from Parr’s Bank, has been sentenced at the Old Bailey to seven years’ penal servitude. It was his necessity for cashing the £5 notes after he had returned £40,000 that led to his arrest. All that he derived from the robbery was the use of £210!

Carpenters working on dredges in the Lawrence district are receiving I2s a day besides board and lodging expenses —that is to say, £4 12s for 48 hours a week.

Mr B. T. Kemp, a very old colonist, and formerly representative on tbe Bluff Harbour Board of tbe suburban boroughs, died at bis residence, Avenal, on Tuesday, 20th. The deceased was in his 79th year. Mr Gibb, master of the Six-Mile school, beyond Waikawa, has found the leg bone of a moa in the Gatlins district. The bone was lying underneath a large totara tree, and Mr Gibb thinks it must have been there over 200 years.

Mr F. G. Morgan, for many years District Land Registrar at Invercargill, died on the 16th inst. The deceased gentleman, who was a valued public servant, and highly esteemed by a wide circle of friends, was in his 74th year.

W. Townlej, labourer, Port Moly3ieux, has been fined £3O and costs for sly-grog selling. His counsel pleaded that his client was a working man, to which the obvious retort is that if he had adhered to that line be would not have got into trouble.

The Rev. E. Best died suddenly when in the act of opening the service in the Union Free Church, Auckland, on Sunday evening. The deceased gentleman, who visited Invercargill some years ago, and preached, if we remember rightly, in the old Wesleyan church, was in the 75th year of his age, and the fifty-first of his ministry.

The following is the verdict of the jury in the Roslyn tramway accident: —‘ That the deceased Kin Hay came to his death through Ko. 7 car bolting, owing to its not being attached to the cable before starting. Further, we exonerate the driver from all blame, he having followed the usual practice.’ If the usual practice is to expose passengers to sadden death' the aooner it becomes unusual the better.

The Deutchland, since her marvellous race across the Atlantic, has developed into a veritable gold mine. Mr Andrew Carnegie paid £1,600 for berths for his party of seventeen, from Skibo Castle, Scotland, on the present voyage. This is said to be the largest amount ever paid for a family ©arty on an Atlantic liner.

It is the betting (remarks the Auckland Star) for which racing offers an easy medium that has given the sport the placej it has among us. The desire to make money without labouring for it, to grow rich by an adventitious turn of Fortune’s wheel—it is the growth of the sentiment, this low ideal, that explains the increasing absorption of the public in racing matters. The racehorse is becoming the mere dice of the gambler, and the green course the green board on which they are thrown. ’

Chas. Lilly white, alias Arthur Blatch, was again charged at Wellington this week on suspicion of being concerned in the Colchester murder. Horace Attwood, who had been brought as a witness from the Bluff, and who lived in Colchester till August, 1898, at first failed to recognise Blatch, but after a further prolonged conversation with accused said that the more he was with accused and the more intimate they became, the more he was inclined to think the man might be Blatch, Accused was further remanded till the 26th inst.

The Very Rev. Father O’Haran, of Sydney, who is joined as corespondent in the Coningham v. Coningham divorce suit, has taken action against a country newspaper for publishing comments likely to prejudice him. A sensation has been caused by the arrest of Mr Abagail, a solicitor connected with the divorce case, on the information of Father O’Haran, who charges him with trying to induce a man to make false statements. Abigail’s counsel declares that the whole power of the Church of Rome is being used against his client.