VICTORIA.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 13, 15 July 1905, Page 9

VICTORIA.

The State Cabinet has agreed to a recommendation by the Treasurer (Mr. Bent) that £50,000 should be set apart this year to provide the improvements in the lunatic asylums regarded as urgent by the Inspector-General. Representations having been made to the Agricultural Department to relax the swine fever regulations so as to permit the introduction from New Zealand of stock pigs, the Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Swinburne, said he could see no objection to the exercise of discretion in these cases after due inspection in quarantine. ' j The action of the Melbourne police authorities in the case of Constable GeeUin, referred to last week, will probably lead to an enquiry into official methods. It is alleged that "insufficient activity in securing cases" is the stock charge against a constable in any wuy obnoxious to his superiors, who has given no genuine ground of complaint, and that charges laid by constables in the course of their duty are ignored by the department on other than public grounds. Two extraordinary escapes having certain points in common are reported from Victoria* ANA N boy seven years old, named Stevens, fell down an abandoned shaft 60ft deep on Sunday, 2nd inst. He fell into soft mud, aud escaped with a few bruises. At Bendigo, on tb^ sth inst., groans were heard proceeding from a shaft 87ft deep. An old-age pensioner named Sullivan was found at the bottom, who stated that he had foHenj in four days before. He had broken four ribs and sustained injury to the spine, but is expected to recover. Complaint has been made to the At-torney-General (Mr. Davies) of a tradesman adveiuising that every purchaser of a suit of clothes at his establishment would receive a. chance in "TattersalPs" consultations. The Attorney-General said that what action might bo called for by the circumstances of the case rested with the police.