AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2050, 11 January 1901, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

The Commissioner of Railways (Mr Mathieson) has returned from his visit to Great Britain and America so strongly impressed with the wisdom of having the permanent way of V ctoriaa railways laid with heavy metals that he is taking steps to have the main lines and the principal suburban lines relaid with 1001b rails.

Archbishop Carr is taking steps to urge members of the Roman Catholic Churchy t.o oppose the proposal to submit the question of religious instruction in State schools to a referendum of the people of Victoria. He regards the Government proposal as being one to decide by an appeal to a majority matters vitally affecting the religious con- j victions and spiritual interest of a consioer- ! able minority, and as being one to over- j throw the principles upon which the State | schools were established. The Full Court at Melbourne dismissed a petition by Mrs Led well, of Tasmania, for divorce from her husband, who is domiciled in Victoria. The Court ruled that petitioner was debarred from succeeding by the 74th section of the Marriage Act, which provides : “No person shall be entitled to a petition under this section who shall have resorted to Victoria for that purpose only.” A distressing burning fatality occurred at Cohuna, in the Kerang district (N.S.W.), at the residence of Mr A. Kirwan, jun. While Mrs Kirwan was in the yard drawing water two of her children upset a bedroom candle, and in an instant the room was in flames. The two children rushed out, and their screams attracted the mother’s attention. She made frantic efforts to enter the burning building to rescue herbaby, but the flames and smoke drove her back, and the infant perished in the flames. A local option poll was taken at Sydney on December 10 on the question “ Should any new licenses be granted ?” There were 1,744 votes recorded against and 674 in the affirmative. The question “Should any renewals be granted ? ” was also resolved in the negative by 1,41S votsa to 970, At the final selection of a new professor of music at Ormond College (Melbourne) Mr Marshall Hall received only six out of sixteen votes, and the appointment of Mr Franklin Peterson was then made unanimous. Mr H. Chatterton, superintendent of the Mitchell Rabbit Board, has arrived at Gharleville (Q.) from a three months’ trip in the south-western districts. He reports that jhe country is in a deplorable s ate. He journeyed over 600 miles by camel, and for the first 500 miles did not see 300 cattle alive. He came across only four waterholes which had anything in them. The country was almost devastated from the south-western corner of the colony to about 'en miles east of the Diamantina River. Fodder bushes were dying, and waterholes eight miles south of Birdsville, which had never been known to be dry before, were completely dried up. In the far southwestern country nine stations were entirely without surface water. No horse or bullock team had been at Beeloola for over two years and a-half, or at Birdsville for over tour years. In one waterhole he saw 1,500 dead cattle, and in another 700. Unless the Government helped the squatters the whole of the south-west country would be thrown back on the State.