Mr Geo. Dickson has been succeeded by Mr John Ash, as Secretary of the Otago Branch, N.Z.T.A.

There are no unemployed in this city at date of writing, the directory work, which is just being put in hand, absorbing all the surplus labor. Trade promises to be brisk up to the dawning of the new year.

A compositor named Henry D. Plante, aged 22, employed on the Otago Witness, met with a sad and fatal misadventure on the 18th inst. He was walking by the edge of the Roslyn tram line on the town belt, and just as he was emerging from the cutting was struck by a sudden gust of wind which threw him across the line in front of a tram, and he was run over. He was taken to the hospital, where he shortly afterwards died. At the inquest, a verdict of « accidental death » was returned. Plante's parents are dead; but he had an uncle at Timaru.