NEWS AND NOTES.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 21 December 1901, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

Income tax for 1901-2 must be paid in one sum on the 29th January, 1902. A pauent who died recently at the Porirua Asylum had 103 epilotio fits in 44 hours.

Men-of-war cost £4B a ton to build in British dockyards, but including guns, etc the total cost is raised to £BO a ton.

For cheating at cards a man named Timothy Proy was fined £5, with coats totalling £7 la, at a Daunevirke court, in default 14 days imprisonment. The value of the Queensland sugar crop this season is valued at £2,000,000, It was mentioned at a meeting of the Timaru Board of Education that school committees in getting work done should be careful to have it done by contract, as by so doing they cannot be held liable for accidents under the Worker’s Compensation for Accidents Act.

When a dog barks at night in Japan the owner is arrested and to work for a year for the neighbours whose slumbers may have been disturbed. A house built of buttons is the latest thing in architecture, and a certain French musical celebrity is said to be building it. The walls the ceilings the doors, the exterior and the interior are all ornamented with buttons of every discription from the very origin of their invention to those of the present day. Those dating from the lower Greek Em* pire are of the most curious manufacture, but every country has been ransacked, and some very curious specimens are reported to have been brought to light. At the Supreme Court, Wellington last week, Oughton, about 18 years of age, sued a companion in a shooting excursion, Fredrick Godber, for £3OO, as compensation for injury to his heel through the accidental explosion of the latter’s gun. The accident took place about 18 months ago, and the plaintiff had been laid up since that time, part of the charge being still embedded in his foot. The jury found for plaintiff £IOO damages, with costs on tho lowest scale. An interesting feature of the case was the production in evidence of an X rays photograph of the injured foot. A lad escaped from Burnham Industrial school 12 months ago, and was never traced. His mother has just received a letter from tho boy to say that he is now on a training ship in London. With two exceptions, all the shopkeepers in Oamaru have signed a petition to the Minister of Labor against tho compulsory Saturday half-holiday under the Factories Act of last session. Particulars of tho estates of 65 deceased persona which were placed under the charge} of tho Public Trustee for management during last month appear in this week’s Gazette. The estates of 18 members of New Zealand’s South African Contingents are included in the return gazetted. During the recent manoeuvres in Switzerland the general staff made a series of experiments characteristic of the most democratic army in Europe. They were designed to test the influence on the troops of smoking being permitted in the ranks during long marches. A staff offi cer, writing in the Tagblatt, of Lucerne, declares that the results showed the balance of advrntago to lie entirely on the side of the full pipe. There were no difficulties of discipline, which was really improved, because smoking kept the men more cheerful and less sensitive of fatigue.

The railway revenue for the four-weekly period ending 9th November was £130,831 12s Id, the total to date being £1,090,412 15s Bd. The expenditure for the four-weekly period was £89,955 4j 2d, the total to date being £769,512 2s lid. The revenue for the corresponding period last year was £122,131 2s lid for the four-weekly period, and £987,193 2s 6d to date. The expenditure for the four-weekly period was £86,338 8 s 9d, and to date £682,827 Held. The number of passengers carried on railways from Ist April to 9ih November, was 3,860,797, as compared with 3,280,524 for the corresponding period of last year, an increase of 580,273. That was exclusive of season tickets, which numbered 62,605, as against 49,091 for the corresponding period of last year.

The Taieri Advocate throws some light on the recent presentation at Auckland of a pair of braces to Sir Hector Macdonald. The old gentleman who presented the suspenders is a manufacturer of them. When the San Francisco mail service was being debated last session the gentleman was interested in the matter, and when the affair was settled lie sent a pair of braces to Mr Massey, M. H. It., as a recognition of his efforts in retaining the mail service. His peculiar and special method of recognising merit is to make a presentation of a pair of braces, A Wairarnpa resident informs a Wo 1 - lington paper that around Maatorton the grain crops are practically ruined by the drought, which has effected nearly the whole of the East Coast districts. Feed is scarce, and the pastures are brown,

and the land has been reduced to abou half its stock carrying capacity. Since March last the price of sheep has fallen from 16s to lls, and there is every prospect of a further decline. On the Tararua ranges, and through the country from Mauriceville and Eket ahuna and the Forty Mile Bmh, there has been an abundance of rain, and plenty of grass is to be seen.