NEWS IN BRIEF.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1829, 24 December 1919, Page 4

NEWS IN BRIEF.

I The Eastern Cable Companies notify j that, owing to congestion of traffic causing serious delay to commercial j telegrams, they cannot accept during this and next week Christinas and New Year greetings telegrams. Intercolonial traffic between New Zealand and Australia is not affected.

I All the rivers of Canterbury were re : ported clear this morning.

To-morrow at 11 a.m., under the ausIpices of the Christehurch Ministers' Association, n united service will be held Jin the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church. The Rev. John Paterson, M.A., will be i the speaker. Through the generosity of members lof the Canterbury Repatriation Board ! and others, sufficient money has been i subscribed to give the blind soldier residing at Papanui a gramophone cabinet i and records, as a Christmas present, and I also to give a small gramophone and | records to a partially-blind soldier at | Dunsandei.

Mr J. D. Hutchin, of the Valuation Department, who is leaving for Wellington early in the New Year, where he will join the Forestry Department, was farewelled yesterday afternoon by members of the staff, and Mr H. L. Wiggins, on their behalf, presented Mr Hutchin with a travelling bag.

A prisoner named Albert Charles Thomas Lamb, alias Arthur Thomas Lamb, who escaped from Timaru Gaol while on remand last week was arrested by Plain-clothes Constables Le Sueur aiid Robertson in Colombo Street last night. lie appeared at the Magistrate's Court this morning, before Mr V. G. Day, S.M., charged with being an incorrigible rogue in that he escaped from the Timaru Gaol on December 17 or 18. On the application of Chief-Detective Mcllveney the accused was remanded until January 21, to appear at Timaru. Bail was refused.