A GIGANTIC SCHEME.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4610, 3 June 1872, Page 3

A GIGANTIC SCHEME.

The South Australians have another big project afloat, one far surpassing in extent and in proposed cost the overland telegraph now in course of construction. They are applying to Parliament for a bill to enable them to construct a railway across the continent, from Port Augusta in the south to Port Darwin in the north. This they propose to do through the intervention of a company, of which Mr. R. D. Ross, who has taken an active part in the arrangement of the preliminaries, is to be managing director, and on behalf of which the Hon. Arthur Blyth, who has on several occasions held the position of Treasurer in South Australia, has" much intoreated himself. But no details have yet been given as to the formation of the company. It is simply said that the promoters are men of substance and influence ; that they fairly represent every interest in the colony ; and that their aim is to deprive the movement of all appearance of exclusiveness. These gentlemen seem, in fact, to be desirous of getting a bill before they do anything more, " which shall bind the colony to certain terms which it is intended to lay before capitalists in EDgland as an inducement to them to undertake the work." What they desire in the shape of inducement is a grant 'of two hundred millions of acres of land, more or less comprised in thirty-five blocks, l^id out alternately east and west of the line. These blocks have been roughly outlined by the Surveyor-General, and will be fully deadribed in, the schedule to the bill. They in no way interfere with any country already owned or occupied for pastoral, mineral, or other purpose, at either end of the line, or along' its course. The largest block will contain -from 12,000 to 13,000, and the smallest 850 square miles. The general average' will be somewhat less than 10,000 square miles. This is a departure from the American system, which has been found to answer so well,* and according to which alternate sections in blocks are given and reserved on each side of the line. But that i could be easily modified, if thought necessary or desirable, in the proposed bill, without any interference with the general features 'of the , project. What the promoters are, doubt-less£-fcibst;*fixibus-tb w obtain is the land in some form or other,, without, any diminution ,of quantity, and they are perfectly right in saying that, lying, as it now does, in a ■Uate ,of -unproductiveness, it is an absolute tuaste of one of the best sources of the ?c>lony 'a -wealth* Forvtheir railway project tliey only ask. two hundred millions of acres of this 'land. < Bat there are,' it seems, ■ betireen four and five hundred millions of acres in the same condition along the course ol the proposed \ line. 1 At the' very lowest computation the.iproposed railway' will cost £10,000,000. „ '

i u.o-V'.'i ,S'.7T7',»' ~- „ " : j > i Punishing (?) a Husband : The Jdbbalpur dhronicle .relates a-, sad, occurrence . which recently took plaoe v «t a station ia that n sighbourhood. A married man was imprud mfc enoagb.2a u few l da;ij''s ago to 1 gat intoxitc kted, whereuponihia. i wife,expelled him from h»r:aou«p fc and pluced.a sentry on guard, with instructions «QtijK) a alW the u husband r tq, c iter the premise«. ; After a couple" of nights' o ' lonelinessrthe-mfe relentedftnddesirea-her i >onse to return j but, "onrlateit informatbj#TJhifrs t fhel Wtibbtdpur- Ghrdnim,v: i H&% " t tat he declined tp comply with i;he request, \ a id, haringbeefti^ta'b^n compassion on by a i^nd she uhristiUn^ intends to divorce himself from number' one." . / . / I A Savannah v '(dai) paper says: /'As a poUcem^attj^ikjukuig a sable prisoner 1 to the Uck-up yesterday Afternoon, the ".ingenuouß tithiop exolaimed^^' Oh, look at dat snake data^-ifad thftEprair like a bright-eyed gazelle, le^vin^ the;Sflylr]tO' *regret iVe n BpaBmodio r l^oiemng'orhls hold oruthelpiißorier'a arm. ] A f »cetioasr{trade^ma^, ( after hating repfeatadly annotinced^hat He was' "selling off, " ,h»s now pl«cArdeH;his house that he is " sellYea can always find a sheet; of wa^er on the bed of the ocean. ' ' ' "'*