AUSTRALIAN SUMMARY.

Evening Post, Volume XVII, Issue 309, 2 January 1879, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN SUMMARY.

? ~ f?Bft PRJBBB AeSITOT.) Melbourne, 24th December. The events of Hie week have been without any special interest. By the time this reaches New Zealand the Embassy Commissioners will be on their way to England. A farewell banquet was given in the Town Hall last Friday, and was attended by seven hundred persons. Tbe tickets were 10s 6d each, including the railway lares. As a consequence a large number of persons availed themselves of the opportunity of making a trip to Melbourne from the most remote parts of the colony at such a cheap rate. The railway pass question raised such an outcry that n buiTied Cabinet meeting wrts held, and Ministers gave out that the amount of the railway fares would be paid for conjointly, by the Ministry out of their private means. Berry made a fiery speech at the banquet as to what would be the result if the will of the people were not carried out. It was a revolutionary sort of scheme, and was enthusiastically cheered by tbe meeting. A farce is being played, as a sort of set-off to the embassy proceedings. The whole of the doings of Berry and party aro being paraded by a aegro politician, very much washed, v/ho has been a flufsance, as a sort of popular agitator. Tbe man is named Henderson, and is generally called called Henderson Afrioanus. He a now designated the third Archdeacon, and was banquetted on the same night as Berry and furnished with a private secretary and new clothes, in addition to credentials to the Secretary of State. Most people thought the joke a capital one, but that it had been carried far enough, but others persisted in carrying it further, and sending the man heme to England in the same steamer with Berry and Pearson. Henderson is afflicted with vanity, and is being fooled to tbe very top of ais bent. Sir Wiujaja Jervoia is at present in Melbourne on the subject of defences. , There is no intelligence of the Kelly gang, and no trace of their movements. There are all sorts of rumors dally, but few have any foundation in fact. Martin Wilbridge, late carpenter of; the Avoca. under remand for stealing five thousand sovereigns from that vessel, has escaped from the custody of the police. Ho had been taken uj detectives to a lonely part of the Gippsland district to point out the plant of sovereigns ; and, although three officers were present, he contrived to put them off their guard, and escaped into the bush, and has not yet been found. There have been several accidents and offences lately. A man named Jobn M'Kean, < of drunkon habits and violent temper, has been committed for trial for murdering ais, infant < child at Collingwood by fracturing its skull. A man and woman wore killed on Friday night, being run over by the Brighton train; the woman was frightfully mangled. A fire at Emerald Hill destroyed three houses on Friday night. ( n the same day a very destructive storm occurred at Coil tern, levelling several dwellings and damaging many more. Very few houses in the township escaped. The Town Hall at Deniliqulh was burnt by . tno bursting of a kerosene lamp while lighting up for Bachelder's Panorama, which was quite ! destroyed. A woman and her two children were drowned ' in a dam at Rokowood. It is supposed that : the children fell in and the woman tried to ¦ rescue them. The Argus is sending a special commissioner Home by the mail to accompany the embassy. Captain Amsiuck, R.N., a well-known old colonist, died oa Thursday last in bis eightieth year. The weather has been Very hot, with no rain, and tho crops are in many districts very much burnt up.