NEWS AND NOTES.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 10 December 1901, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

Mr S. Spragg, chief of the Hansard staff, has been appointed as Examiner under the Shorthand Reporters Act. The trial of an apparatus invented by Mr Harrington, of the Curistchurch railway service, was made at Rangiora on Tuesday. It was found to fill the tank of a locomotive in a third of the time taken with the ordinary tank hose. The tauk of a large engine was filled within a minute.

Rumours are current that the heads of the Departments have been instructed to run the pruning knife through the Civil Service, and get rid of a number of temporary clerks aud extra rnesers who for some time past have been cumbering administrative ground. It is stated that the knife will cut deep, as several departments are grievously overloaded.

It is satisfactory that the Dunedin authorities of the two dredging Companies in which salting is said to have played a part, have decided upon a thorough investigation. This is due to the victimised shareholders and all the local people who have been in any way connected with the flotation of the companies and the prosecution of the undertakings. Mr J. A. Gilruth, Chief Government Veterinarian, is gazetted Pathologist to the Public Health Department. Mr J. S. Maclaurin, D. Sc, F. C. S., has been appointed analyist to the same department. In the course of an interview with the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce yesterday Sir Joseph Ward mentioned the fact that the Pacific cable will touch at five different countries. According to the "Southland Times" at the Supreme Court at Invercargi 1 on Tuesday his Honour Mr Justice Denniston, in stopping a witness from rambling into irrelevant detail*, said lie wish-.d the Legislature would carry out their promise to provide shorthand reporters for the courts and so save him from the unnecessary labour of taking down bushels and bushels of chaff, out of which there was now and then something resembling a grain of wheat. A shorthand reporter could be taking down all this mass of evidence, while he made a note of the rare points that were relevant, and a great deal of time and labour would be saved.