AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2567, 29 March 1869, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

(From the Argus, March 11 to March 17, inclusive.) The registrar-general estimates that at the close of the year the population of the colony was 683,977, which shows an increase of 24,090 during the year 1868, We notice from the north of Queensland newspapers that a shipment of twenty-five tons of manganese ore has been made at Gladstone for Sydney, for transhipment, to London. An interesting return relating to electric telegraph offices was laid upon the table of the Assembly last night. There are seventythree ofliccs throughout the colony, of which only four yielded a profit during last year; the remaining sixty-nine are carried on at an annual loss, The charge-sheet of the City Police Court , was worth carefully looking at yesterday. It contained no less than fifty cases, and in--1 eluded almost every variety of petty offence

common to great cities. Eighteen persons were fined! or imprisoned for drunkenness; eight were charged with insulting behaviour; Ave were either summoned or had been arrested for assaults of a violent character; three were prosecuted for stealing from the peraon; five for simple larceny, two for burglary, three for vagrancy, one for assault and robbery, one for obstructing the police, one as a disorderly woman of the town, and three othors for minor offences, The Brisbane Courier of the Bth inst. has the following:—" G. H. Hall, sheriff's officer, took • French leave' of his superiors some days ago, and has not yet returned, About the Bame time a sum of public money, of which the amount is not precisely known, also disappeared. Between £3OO and £4OO is missing, but as certain books and papers have gone too, the sum lost can only be guessed at at present. Hall, we believe, announced that he was about to proceed to the Downs for the benefit of his health, but it is thought that he subsequently changed his mind, and went north. Efforts are being made to restore him to his friends, but the hopes of success are not great." The Tasmanian jam trade appears to be of yearly increasing importance. The Weekly News estimates that last season 600 tons of jam were made, all of which were exported , .w to t'.u commencement of the present season, There are now nearly twenty establishments in existence, turning out from 10 to 250 tons per annum. The total quantity i.I j.im that, will be made this season, on the southern side of the island, is estimated at from 850 to 900 tons, giving direct trade to nearly 300 people. The northern side will make, it is said, about 300 tons, the value of which, together with that of the southern produce, will raise the export trade of jam to nearly £70,000 per annum. It is not likely that any gold-fleld will be developed in Tasmania while the people of that colony remain so apathetie on the subject as they are at present. For some time past prospecting has been carried on at a place called West Arm, by a digger named v r\ v >■> has spent a large sum in en- ---■ - w -..:J ago d-field, and a meeting was held on Saturday last at Launcestoo, to see whether help could not be given to him. •No resolution, however, could ,be arrived at, and so the matter came to an 'end, A party of four or five Victorian miners have also been prospecting at the Den, but they, too, had exhausted their resources, and an offer to prospect "on terms" not being favourably entertained by the meeting, they abandoned the search.

The Ararat Advertiser says"Those who are not in the habit of travelling in the country can scarcely realise the frightful mortality amongst sheep. There is literally no grass. The whole country is as bare and devoid of herbage as a beaten road, and in those large paddocks into which many squatters'stations are divided, the dust swirls about with the wind mucli as it does on some highway. It is not an uncommon thing to calculate upon 400 to GOO sheep being dead in one paddock alone, the air being tainted for miles with the decomposing carcases. At the Wimmera, we believe, the squatters were all in a good position in reference to the boiling-down establishments,and were able to thin their flocks profitably and quickly. It appears that the sheep generally huddle together, in numbers of about six or eight, and die off thus grouped."

It seems probable that the whole question of banking in the colony will shortly come under the review of Parliament. Mr Francis yesterday obtained leave to introduce a bill enabling the Bank of New South Wales, the Bauk of Victoria, and the National Bank to take security over lands in the colony of Victoria. He explained that the intention of the measure was simply to extend to the colonial banks the same priviliges that were enjoyed by the foreign institutions. The Chief Secretary offered no opposition to the motion, but he intimated that in all probability the House would take advantage of the introduction of the measure to deal with the whole subject of the banking institutions of the country, as there were many matters which urgently required to be dealt with. The remarks of Mr M'Culloch met with the approval of Mr Kerford and other hon. members.

His Royal Highness Prince Alfred, on the occasion of bis last visit to Sydney, permitted the publication of a waltz composed by himBelf, an unpretentious morceau, but exceedingly melodious, The return to Sydney of the Duke is made the subject of another composition of the same kind, also by his Royal Highness, entitled "The Return of the Galatea." This has been published, with the permission of the Royal captain, by Mr J. H. Anderson, of George street. Thai our Royal visitor delights in the " divine art" is beyond question, says the Sydney Morning Herald, and without descending to obsequiousness, we may regard it as an honour to the colony that he has given to the public the result of a few quiet hours of musical study. The "Return Waltz" is simple in construction, melody rather than brilliance being the object sought, The introduction is from a wellknown air. The waltz, divided into three parts, with a /We, is soft,in the style known by musicians as cantabilt, easy of performance and well-marked time for dancing. The title-page contains an admirable photograph of the Galatea, and it is elegantly printed. Mr E. C. Cracknell, the superintendent of telegraphs of New South Wales/has just returned to Sydney from a visit to Gabo Island. He went to inspect a shifting sandbank between Gabo Island and the mainland, near Cape Howe, witli a view to making the necessary arrangements for carrying the telegraph wire from Twofold Bay to the Gabo' Lighthouse. The place where this sandbank usually appears is sometimes covered with water for a mile in extent. Two seas meet, and in rough weather there is an extraordinary rise of the tide. 'I he bar is ever changing. It is sometimes here, sometimes there, and sometimes washed away by a storm, but it gradually forms again. Hence the di'iiculty iu the way of stretching across from the mainland a telegraphic wire. Mr Cracknell is of opinion that it will be necessary to put screw piles with large flanges through the sand and into the solid rock. When this work is accomplished, and the telegraph is in working order, shipping from other ports, arriving by way of the Straits, may be telegraphed from the most extreme south point of the colony. The line along the land from Twofold Bay will be ahout thirty-five niiles, and the distance between the Gabo light and th. mainland is given in Reading and Wettbanh's Nautical Almanac as five and a half miles. The island itself is about two miles long. Mr Cracknell went in the Thetis, in company with Lieutenant Gowland of the surveying schooner Edith, who has been commissioned to run a'meridian line, take soundings, and perform various other scientific services for the Imperial Government.