Interprovincial

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 15, 11 April 1907, Page 24

Interprovincial

The attendance at the Exhibition foi the past week, was 120,680, making an aggregate of 1,805,165 to Saturday nigM. The Hon. J. A. Millar gives a flat denial to the; report that an officer of the Labour Department is to be sent Home to bring out laboring men owing to the scarcity of ' skilled ' unskilled _ labor. The Minister says the policy of the Government, determined some time ago, is to give assisted passages to 'domestic servants and agricultural laborers only. The balance' sheet for the Wellington City Council for the year ended March 31st shows receipts £170,827, expenditure £168,657, balance £2170. The municipal tramways for the same period showed a profit of £14,300, or 9 per cent, on capital- invested. After seting aside £10,500 for depreciation, etc., the net profit is .£3BOO. A few weeks ago we had an account of the finding of a watch and chain in the stomach of an eel that was captured in ~t"he Pleasant River, near Goodwood, and' more recently the finding tof &. fang', which had been lost for seven years, in the appendix of a cow slaughtered at Wallan, Victoria. The sequel to the New Zealand story is now going the rounds of the press. The police have located the owner of the watch and chain, who is employed at Alexandra, and the missing property has now been restored to him. A Greymouth correspondent writes •: — The authorities of Trinity College, London, have awarded an exhibition in pianoforte playing to Miss Maria Robinson" who obtained 97 marKs .jn junior honors in the examinations held here last September. The exhibition is of the value of six guineas. Miss Robinson is a pupil ' of the Sisters of Mercy, Greymouth. Another candidate presented by the Sisters in the senior division (theory) scored the highest number of marks (90) ob-tained-last year in the United Kingdom and the Colonies. The name of this candidate is Mary B a ptiste Clunan.

A Wellington telegram states that the Marine ' Engineers' Institute has decided to purchase a site in the city for £1320, on which to erect a three-storeyed building for the use .of the institute. The ' Triad ' for April contains the .usual amount of instructive matter on scientific and kindred matters;, added to which the editor's experiences in America and elsewhere are more than usually interesting. At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Bank of New Zealand last week, Mr. Harold Beauchamp, of Wellington, was elected chairman. Mr. Beauchamp hVs •been a 'director for eight years, and was , acting chairman for ten months in- 1905.- _„ - s The steamer ' Warrimoo ' brought a valuable consignment- of 16 merino sheep from' Australia last week. v - The stock is valued at about £4700, and one animal alone is said to have cost £1000. The "sheep will be foxwarded to South America by the ' TuraMna.' , By a curious coincidence two brothers named - Blackwo/od had ea<ch a collarbone broken while playing'football on Saturday week. One of them, who is employed by Messrs. Priest and Holdgate, Timaru, was -playing at Dunedin ; his brother was playing at Kingston. The Cabinet have decided to appoint Mr. Donald Robertson, - for many years assistant secretary to the Piost and- Telegraph * Departments, to succeed the late Mr. William . Gray as secretary to these departments. It was also decided, in recognition of Mr. Gray's long and valuable sea-vices to the Colony, to graaut decease cd's younger children a maximum compassionate allowance equivalent to two years' salary. The rapid transpositions of colonial life have rarely been . more stitkingly exemplified (says the Wairarapa ' Daily Times' ') than they were in the case of a roadman for the -Eketahuna County Council. No sooner'was ■he dispensed with by the overseer than he became nominated for the council, and, making an active canvass, swiftly t(ecame the overseer's employer. This complete turning of -the tables only occupied a few days, and it is now the talk of the county. At a meeting of the Ohristclrarch City "Council on Monday night three reports were presented on different systems of generating electricity for the municipal supply. The first dealt with water power from the Waimakariri, the second with steam power, and the third ' with suction gas. The council approved of * the water power proposal, but decided to leave the final decision in the hands of the new council. The estimated cost of the water plant and installation is £133,642, and the annual working cost £15,435 X . A good, story is told by the Akaroa ' Mail ' of a Maori, who, having lost his wife, asked a European who was going from Little River to Christchurch, to procure a coffin for the remains of his wife, who had just died* When the European came back ' from town that afternoon, the Maori met him, and asked if he had procured the coffin, and on his- answering in the affirmative, the Maori shook- his hand in thanks for the trouble he had *g6ne to in the procuring of the coffin for his wife, and added, ' I hope 1 shall soon be able to do the same for you." Not often, probably; has the fate of a newspaper depended upon the spin of a coin (says the Dunedin ' Star '). Mr. George Fenwick related at the Clyde banquet how this occurred in Otago. Mr. Matthews and himself , owned the ' Tuapeka Press.' ' Their paper had a hard struggle. The other paper a t Tuapeka w a s also not doing very well. Quite - tired at length c« competition that brought about much worry and little profit, Fenwick and Matthews at last offered to buyout the opposing proprietary. Mr. Fenwick went across and made the offer, but it was bluntly rejected. ' The end of" the conference was an agreement to toss up as to which should sell, and it chanced/that Fenwick and Matthews had t 0 go out of business in Tuapeka. Then Mr. Fenwick went to Cromwell 7 and started the ' Argus,' just in time to forestall another man,.. but the latter was already on ' the road with'his plant, and the jump from the' 1 Tuapeka frying-pan was into the Cromwell fire. However, in the long run, Mr. Fenwick's ' side triumphed, and 1 the Cromwell c Argus ' settled down to an unexciting ftfe of usefulness.

_ c The publication of an advertisement in a Catholic paper shows that the advertiser not only desires the patronage of Catholics, but pays them the compliment of seeking it through the medium of their own religious journal.' So says an esteemed and wide-awake American contemporary. A word to the wise is sufficient....