In reply to an inquiry from the Woodend Committee, th« Board: of Education, has decided that, while it approved of the miction , of flagptafi's, the movement being of a patriotic value, it should be supported by the residents in the district, not at the cost of the incidental fund.
The Education Board has decided to write to the Kaiapoi Island School Committee that the interruption, of the ordinary 6chool routine, caused by the imparting of religious instruction, must be discontinued, as al though the Board had no objection , to such instruction being given, it must take place cither before or after school hours.
Preaching at Waitara the other evening, the Rev. F. G. Ber.net is reported to have sa-id that sixty years ago the native popula t.on of New Zoaland was estimated to be 150,000, to-day it was 40,000, and steadily (Increasing. It was discreditable to us as a rutiun that no systematic effort was being made to save the native race.
How the money goes. A man in a N.S.W. country town (Mudgee) who broke si window valued at half-a-crown was com mitted for trial. His was the only case, yet a jud'g-e, Crown prosecutor, and others came from Sydney and a jury was empan elled—merely to hear accused plead guilty. Cost to the* country, £270!

Various excuses were made yesterday morning at the Magistrate's Court by cycliste in extenuation of their conduct in riding their bicycles on the footpath, but they were all met by the same clinching reply from the presiding magistrate, firstly, that there was no law compelling tliein to ride bicycles at all, and secondly, there was no law compelling them to ride their bicycles ou the footpath.
