MELBOURNE GOSSIP. Egles, in the Australasian, writes :—

Evening Post, Volume XVI, 20 April 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

MELBOURNE GOSSIP. Egles, in the Australasian, writes :—

ASTUTE PUBLICANS. When Clovernook, N.S.W., was not so flourishing a place as it now is, the police were extremely zealous. They used to watch a cheque-laden wayfarer when he entered the township. The usual process was to shepherd him until he was drunk, and lock him up and have him fined. He was thus frequently liberated with threefourths of his cash unexpended, and disgusted with the inhospitableness of Clovernook, he would make for another township, whose publicans thus got the balance. This gross injustice to the enterprise of Clovernook led to a formal convention of injured pnblichouse keepers, and the result was that the police were requested to communicate with the landlords before arresting any drunkards. The latter are .now not laid by the heels so long as they retain in their possession the amount of the customary fine. The thing works admirably. The P.M. can regulate the fine by the amount which, by the charge-sheet, he sees was in the prisoner's possession when arrested ; and, without impairing the energy of the police, a fair margin of profit is secured for the liquor-sellers of Clovernook by not driving away the circulation of adventitious capital.A LUDICROUS INCIDENT. They tell me that the culminating scene of " William Tell," as played by Creswick in Sydney, was somewhat endangered by a gallery boy. As the trembling youth, with an apple on his head, is awaiting the arrow of his parent, who has just struck a heroic attitude, the breathless anxiety of the audience was disturbed by a sympathetic urchin from aloft crying out to the youthful Tell, "Keep your eye on your father, and he will pull you through !" RATHER GOOD. Called the other day, says Stockfish, on a lady who, amongat other domestic treasures, displayed to me two canaries, and a sewing machine. "Do yon know," said she, " what I call my canaries ?" Pleading inability even to conjecture, .she continued, "Oh, I have named them 1 Wheeler and Wilson, because neither of them is a Singer. " ( This ia not a disguised? advertisement. ) A BETTER BEVERAGE. -_ .\--J No blessing is altogether unmixed, and no calamity is as bad as it might be. The deprivation of water the other day, owing to the stoppage of the Van Yean, was a. cause of inconvenience to many, but to come it was not without its compensations^ On the Tuesday a lady visiting a large drapery establishment in one of the suburb? noticed after she had been in it for some l time that an air of unwonted cheerfulness pervaded the shop. Shopmen were more than usually active^ civil, obliging, and much more than^ uanaliy chatty. There was. indeed a free and easy manner obBervable that might haye been obtrusive, but that it-&eemea to be the mere Qutcpmq of general happiness and good humour. There was evidently a mystery somewhere. Conversation was brisk, and in the course of it the loss of water was referred to. " Yes," said the shopman, " no doubt it is very bad for a good many people, but we don't mind it ; in fact, we rather like it. You see, directly the water was turned off, our governor went down to the brewery, and sent up a couple of casks of capital beer, and we don't care how long the water is turned off." 7 his was tho explanation, and it made everything perfectly clear.

Brisbane, he presented himself officially before his immediate chief, Mr. Manning, who held the office then known as that of Principal Under Secretary, and at the interview, Bowerman, smarting under a sense of wrong, whether real or imaginary, comported with some violence. Mr. Manning, who was a great red-tapiht, doubtless did not by his own manner, soothe the irritation of a man rendered desperate by impending dismissal, and the meeting terminated abruptly. Bowerman, however, seems to have become possessed of a devil: for upon leaving the office he proceeded to an ironmonger's Bhop, and purchased a tomahawk, with which weapon he returned half an hour afterwards and savagely attacked Mr. Manning, inflicting wounds on the head which kept the unfortunate gentleman for many weeks hovering between life and death, and resulted in permanently incapacitating him from brain work of any kind. Bowerman for this offence was sentenced to hard labor for life ; and his victim was pensioned off on full salary, with a continuance of one-half to his widow in event of his death before her. After fifteen years only of the sentence being carried out, the convict has now been released. The justification for this course is found in his uniform good conduct in gaol ; but the action of the Government is regarded with grave disapproval by many thinking men. In this case, however, there has been a strange additional punishment, beyond that inflicted by the offender's fellow men — as, on the very day of the convict's release, news reached him of the death, in an adjoining Colony, of his wife, to whom he had been warmly attached.