Mr B. Smith has resigned the office of Provincial Auditor, and the inconvenience consequent upon the suspension and dis missal of Mr Dorsett still continues. The. complaints of tradespeople whoso ac counts have been standing over for the past two months are becoming loud and deep. Affairs have not yet been reduced to the pitiable condition of four years ago, when the Province was in such indigent circumstances, but the number of little bills being presented and the fervency Avith which hand-to-mouth traders pray for payment bring up strong reminiscences of the old regime. No little difficulty has been experienced in obtaining a suitable site for the erfcetion of a new school at Te Aro. In view of the pressing necessity for a new building, the Education Board will proceed with the erection of the new school as rapidly as possible, as the present school is now utterly inadequate to the increasing at tendance of pupils. It will, no doubt, be a matter of surprise to the inhabitants of the city generally to learn that the average daily attendance at Mr Holmes' school reaches 350. The operation of the Edu cation Act has been most beneficial in bringing within the walls of the school a number of children who heretofore were allowed to run wild about the streets of the town. The settlement of the majority of the newly arrived immigrants at the Te Aro end of the town accounts for the additional attendance at the Te Aro school. The attendance at the Sydney street school is about 195 on the average. "We learn with, much regret that a sudden and severe domestic bereavement has compelled Mr Kirk to discontinue for a short tivne the lectures on Botany which he commenced last week, and that he is under the necessity of immediately returning to Auckland. We understand that Mr Kirk anticipates being able to resume his lectures by the week after next at the latest, and that it is his in tention, on his return from Auckland, either to give additional weekly lectures, or to continue them for a short period ' after the conclusion of the Lent term, in order to make up for those which he is. unavoidably compelled to drop. 