NEW PLYMOUTH.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3467, 4 February 1880, Page 2

NEW PLYMOUTH.

Yesterdfay,

Owing tobush fires in the neighbourhood of the Hon Major Atkinson's estate, he has suffered considerable damage, over a mile of fencing having being burned, besides hedges. It was feared at one time that a largo haystack would have caught, but was most fortunately saved.

At the police pour I; this morning, a question arose respecting the powers of certain district courts to grant probate of administration. His Worship said, that by an act passed last session, the district

courts of Otago, Hokitika, Napier, Auckland, Tarauaki, .Nelson and Marlborongh, were not only prohibited from issuing probate but all probate orders already granted by those courts were invalid. This was evidently an egregious error, and he believed would be rectified next session. At the Borough Council, one, John McDonald, requested compensation for loss of his wife, who was drowned through falling into a river, "the approaches to which were not properly protected, the woman was not sober at the time, and th« bridge is a private one, leading from an hotel.