NEW ZEALAND TELEGRAMS.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 57, 4 September 1897, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND TELEGRAMS.

I Per Press Association i Mastkrton, Sept. 2. A poll was taken to day on the queHtion of the ratiug upon unimproved values. The Dumber of ratepayers on the roll was 623. Of these ouly 201 recorded their votes, wbich was seveu less than the number required to make the poll valid. Of the votes recorded 255 were in favour, and ouly 49 against the proposal. Nauer, Sept. 2. The flood executive completed arm nge ments yesterday for the purchase from the A.M. P. Society of annuities for the widows and children of the men who perished in the recent flood. All the cases were .»ettled except two, and the settlemeut of these is necessarily post poncd owing to special circumstauces. A crowded pubiic meeting, attcuded by all the leading business men and many prominent country settlers, re ceived and heard a deputation from Wairoa on the subject of n light railway from Napier to Gisborne and Rotorua via Wairoa. Great enthusiam prevailed, and it was resolved to start a branch of the Railway Leagno here to co operate with the Wairoa and Giaborne Leagues Dunedin, Sept. 2. James Northey, serving three years for house breaking, attempted to escape from the prison gang at the Taiaroa Heads last night. On August 28 he bad secured a knife, and partly hewn dowu the door post of the call, aud got one leg out when bis attempt was discovered, and be was charged by the police to day under the Prisons Act, and sentenced to a years' extra imprisonment. If he had been charged under the Criminal Code be could have been sentenced to imprisonment for life. Wellington, Sept. 4. It is understood that negotiations for the sale of the Union Company's steam era Moa and Oreti to the Wellington Steam Packet Company are almost completed. Auckland, Sept. 3. Henry Campbell fruiterer and tobacconibt, of Freeman's Bay, was arrosted on a charge of unlawfully receiving certain tobacco, knowing it to be stolen, has been released on bail in a sum of £200. At the inquest on the body of James Kenneth Taylor, of Te Awamutu, who fell from a horse and was killed, a verdict of accidental death was returned.