AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume XII, Issue 3353, 26 April 1881, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

A MAN named Michael Henry Swensou has been found dead on the Arcadia Road, near Murchison, Victoria, with hia skull smashed in. A large pine stick was found close by covered with blood. The police with black trackers, are in search. The property at the corner of Elizabothetreet and Collins-street, Melbourue, upon which the Clarence Hotel is situated, was oH'ercd for sale to-day, and bought in at £050 per foot. The New Zealand Star Dramatic Company of which Mr J. B. Steele is a member, at the Victoria Theatre, have had crowded houses.

Applications are being called for in London for a Professor of Agriculture for South Australia, at a salary of £800 per annum.

In connection with the recent caso in which a woman wiujjdaid to have shot herself with a revolver, while ot unsound mind, in Melbourue, and the Coronei'a jury endorsed the statement, fresh facts poiut to the c:isc being one of deliberate murder, and the matter is being investigated. A sale of yearling colta and (illics was held at Handwick. The highest prices given were—l2os guineas, by Mr A. A. Dangar, tor a hay colt by Ynttendon, out of Lady Chester —the dam of Chester and many other celebrated horses; and 1001 guiueas was accepted for a brown lilly a sister to Grand Flaneur, Mr W. A. Lour being the purchaser. The Fernhill yearlings having been disposed of, the youngsteis of 'J'ocal were submitted to auction, but the prices realised wers not up to expectations ; but a grey colt, a brother to Spiuningdnle, foaled in November, 1879, found a purchaser in Mr W. Long, who secured tho sou of Sappho for 1450 guineas. Hurricane at Franklin Harbour. The correspondent of the " Port Augusta Dispatch," writing from Franklin Harbour on the 26' th ultimo, says :—" A most frightful hurricane passed over here on the 23rd, the like of which has never been known here since tho first settlement of tho placo by whitfl men. Trees were uprooted in many places, and those standing had a good deal of their leaves stripped oil' by the hailstone?, which were as Luge as marbles. Nearly four inches of rain fell between 2.30 p.m. and 5 p.m. One farmhouse, that of Mr A. Russell, had its roof completely taken oil', and some of the iron carried fully half a mile. The men working in the field wore obliged to lay down and cover up their faces and arms to prevent being bruised by the hailstones. Mr Russell, who hud started that morning in company with two men and a team for a lank of water, was caught by the storm on his return journey, and after emptying the tank, they proceeded onwards, but had not gone far before they had to leave the empty waggon struck up to the bed, and take the horses on without it. They hud not gone far before they came to the Ullibidnie Creek, which they had to cros3, and which was running four feet deep and 30 yards wide, with a powerful current. As they were drenched to the skin and shivering with cold under a pelting rain, the task of waiting for the tide to fall was rather a painful one, and after waiting some time in this situation without seeing auy difference in the tide Mr .Russell attempted to cross, and after several trials at leugth succeeded in breasting it on horseback. Another of the patty followed and arrived in safety; but the third who allowed his horse to go too much with the stream, got entangled in some ti-tree, and tho animal, struggling to get clear, got his hind legs so bogged that he reared and threw his rider into the torrent, but he, fortunately had the presence of mind to hold on to the reins, which, probably saved his life and tiie horse, being thuslightcned of its burdcu. got clear, and drew its rider, who was holding oa fist by the traces and iciua, in safety to the shore. Being now all on the right side of the creek, they proceeded honicw.ird, but arrived there only in time to find tho dwelling roofless and a foot deep in water. It being now night they were obliged for some hours to share the ordinary fate of shipwrecked mariners. Some were rather scared with the storm, and one man in particular bc^an to think seiiou>ly of Mother Slupton and the end of all things. But it is strange to say that the storm was not s;oieral, for it only took a strip of a few miles wide, outside of which the rain was not very heavy ; but in the line it went it bore down all opposition.