NEWS IN BRIEF.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 80, 7 November 1874, Page 7

NEWS IN BRIEF.

A miserly settler at Hamilton (Waikato), whose wife was on her death-bed, refused to pay the travelling expenses of his son whom the dying mother wished to see. After the woman died he bought a packing case, nailed a bit of black cloth on it, on which he chalked her name, and thus she was buried. The following appears in the ' Wanganui Herald ' in the shape of an advertisement : — " For sale, cheap. — The pewter drinking pot given by the Wanganui Rifle Association as a silver cup, at the last spring meeting. Price — any sum exceeding ss. The pot was given as first prize, the second prize being £2." Flour at the Palmer River is fetching £300 per ton. A rumour is current in Wellington that Sir Donald M'Lean is to be offered the Governorship of Fiji, but it is not known whether tho rumour has any foundation. About one-third of the young cattle in Auckland is said to havo been lost through the Bevere weather. The New Zealand Insurance Company has increased its capital to one million pounds in £10 shares. ._ Jud&e Gbay was rather unfortunate during his recent visit lo Queenstown. On the trip up his Honor lost a roll of notes containing £28. The loss was not discovered until after he arrived at Clyde, and the manner of the loss is also unknown. Thb Christchurch City Council, with only one dissentieul, has resolved to discontinue at the end of the present year the allowance of £300 a year made to the Mayor for official expenses. The Melbourne ' Argus' thus sums up the conclusion of a speech recently made by Mr Langton, on the question of Free Trade v. Protection :—": — " The result of ten years Protection is this — that after deducting the gold, wool, cattle, and sheep imported from neighboring Colonies, our^imports have fallen off from £14,336,004, in 1864, to £10,604,064 in 1873, our popiuation having increased in the interval from 605,500 to 800,000. During the same decade our exports, after making similar deductions, have dwindled down from £3,529,864 lo £2,743,257 ; so that, while there was an increase of 254 in the population, there was a decrease of 17*6 per cent, in the exports. A half-caste boy, ten years of age, was drowned in Wellington harbor on the afternoon of the 19th iiist. Mr John Dalgleish has been appointed manager of the Invercargill branch of the new Colonial Bank. Mr Hawthorne has resigned his position as Rector of the High School. The day of departure of the Northern goldfields Jescorb from Clyde is altered from the first Monday to the third Monday in each month, and the next escort will uob be despatched till the 16th of November. The yield of gold of the Shotover Terrace Company for the past fortnight amounted to 330z. 15gr., the work during that period having been principally confined to fresh timbering the ground. Mr George Ireland, M.P.C. for Roxburgh, addressed his constituents on Saturday evening last. According to a Berlin paper tho British Government has been for some time in correspondence with foreign Powers on the subject of international regulations as to collisions at sea. Proposals have been submitted by England which, will probably result in "the calling of an international conference. At a meeting of the tobacco trade of Scotland it was agreed to raise the price of the manufactured article in consequence of an anticipated light crop in America this season.