NEWS AND NOTES.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 27 November 1901, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

A Quecnstown (Tasmania) syndicate, comprising 20 members of the old Mount Lyell Stock Exchange, draw the first prize in Tattersall's £1 consultation on the Melbourne Cup, worth £13,500 net. Among the members are a number of leading business and professional men of Queenstown.

It i 3 the intention of the New South Government to start a clothing factory at the beginning of the year. Clothing for Government employees such as police, and eventually the railway and tramway men, the asylum attendants and others will be made at the factory. The break of gauge difficulty on the Australian State railways has attracted the attention of a N.S.W. inventor. His idea is to place a third rail on the present track so as to mske two gauges with the one track. By this means trains could be run right through from Queensland to South Australia without any transference on either freight or passengers. A similar idea has teen tried wi;h success on the Great Western Railway in England. The Victorian Government has adopted a scheme for supplying water to the dry areas of the Mallee District. For the present only a portion of the proposed work will be undertaken. The remainder will follow, and when the whole has been completed the cost will be about £220,000. It is calculated that a good water supply will be spread over an area of 5000 square miles of territory. Arrangements have been made by the Government Astronomer of Western Australia whereby a daily meteorogical teport will be forwarded by the Eastern Extension Company's officers at the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean. It is considered that this will be of very material assistance to the meteorologists of Australia in the making of their forecasts.

It is hinted in official circles at Home that the War Office found Sir George S. Clark, the newly-appointed Governor of Victoria, inconveniently strong-minded aid frank in his criticism of red-tape anomalies. The London correspondent of the Age says it is rumoured that ho owes, his position as Governor of Victoria to a desire on the part of the Imperial authorities to get him out of the way, as ono who had become too dangerously intelligent and energetic for the army service.

Ever since the Federal tariff came into operation in Sydney there have been loud complaints about the lack of accomodation and the meagre clerical staff provided at the local Customs house. The building is crowded out with people waiting to pass entries, and only about half of them are able to transact their business.

Mr Clement Wragge has been crying out for more stiger vortex guns for his rah-making experiments. The public he wails will not listen to us, and expect a precipitation with one gun only ; and because, forsooth, we cannot do it with that one piece, as has been so often stated, derisive scorn is launched at this office by an unthinking public in a most unfair manner.