NEWS IN BRIEF.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3700, 6 October 1927, Page 1

NEWS IN BRIEF.

'Building is exceedingly brisk on the West Coast at the present time, says a Greymouth message. . Measles and mumps are fairly prevalent in the Pahiatua district at the present time. , New Zealand, with 1,300,000 people, has more surfaced roads than the State of. New York, with 10,000,000 inhabitants. A cricketer at Kendal, England, hit a ball into a tender of a passing train, and the fireman duly fielded it. Noon in Now Zealand (mean time) is 4.15 p.m. the day before at Vancouver, 0.30 p.m. at Chicago, and 7.30 p.m. at New York. Mont Blanc, the highest peak of the Alps, is to be renamed Mount Benito Mussolini, in honour of the Premier of Italy. Another level-crossing smash, the fourth within the past fortnight, occurred yesterday at the point where the. Main South Road crosses the railway at Hornby, near Christchurch. An electric battery rail car which runs to Little River struck a heavy motor lorry. The rail car was damaged but not derailed and continued its journey. The motor truck was badly damaged. No one was injured. “Try fluke,” a favourite term of Maoris on the East Coast, was the description applied b yMr. E. C. Levvey, S.M., to a counter-claim for damages for assault made by a Maori in the Magistrate’s Court at Gisborne last week. The case was one in which the plaintiff sued a Maori for £l4 10s for rent of a cottage and two acres of land occupied by the latter. The defendant counter-claimed for £lO damages tor alleged assault, stating that the plaintiff had come to him, demanding his rent, with a pitch-fork in his hand, and had scared him so iliuch that he jumped the fence and also “put the wind up” his family. This the plaintiff denied. The magistrate entered judgment for the plaintiff for the full amount with costs.