SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

Evening Post, Volume LXXII, Issue 66, 15 September 1906, Page 9

SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

A new town, to be called tho town of Tintinara, in the hundred of Coombe, South Australia, has been constituted and proclaimed. It will include the existing Tintinara railway station. Tho speeches of the Hon. T. Price, tho South Australian Premier, aro so vcrboso as a rule and so ill defined that, it is difficult to gather any 'very definite policy ideas from them. He has, however, made an intelligible utterance as to certain educational reforms he has in view. "They wanted," ho said, "to have sixth classes in the countiy; but they could not have them at every school, because the State could not stand the expense, but some school in each district would be classified and bo a sixth class school. The department would then pay the parents a small fee per week to cover the cost of conveyance of thoso pupils to and from tho schools. This would enable them to do away with a number of smaller inferior schools and build' up large ones Tho parents in the same localities could club together and hire vehicles to take the children to the schools. They wanted to decentralise tho education system and give the children in tho country as good an education as those in tho cities and towns. It cost from £7 to £8 per head tq teach the children in the backblocks ; but in the city the amount was only 30s per head. In regard to tho city, where a head master had from 600 to 700 pupils, he might havo f/om 100 to ISO in his sixth class, and there was a danger of his neglecting those in the lower forms. If the Ministry carried out the schemo they would havo a school in Adelaide which would be a sixth class institution only, and be tho beginning of a continuation school system. The different schools in Adelaide and tho suburbs would send their boys and girls who had reached that stage to the sixth-class establishment. An unprecedented case of vandalism occurred on Dequetteville-terrace, Kent Town, Adelaide, on tho night of the 30th ult. Tho treeplanting committee of Kensington and Norwood in recent years has devoted much time and cxponso to beautifying tho suburbs, and the boldest "scheme they had taken in hand was the planting of the tcrraco in question, in which work tho Adelaido Corporation assisted, tho scheme extending slightly into its domain, 'Eighty beautiful white cedars, elms, and white acacias — the pick of the city nursery ijiwwjiut.injMwt wfcalwdJm Uw.Adelude

Corporation staff, and the trees were so well grown — some of. them were five yearp old — that the citizens in the immediate suburbs were looking forward to a graceful and thriving avenue at an early date. But they had not been planted a week when the workmen arriving in the morning found that during the night seventy-two of the trees had been completely severed, as with.' an axe. The completeness of the ruin is the most astonishing part of the business, as the work of destruction must have occupied ovei an hour in a public place in bright moonlight and within range of street lamps. Judging from the number of cuts on the_ trunks some of the trees offered considerable resistance, serving to emphasise the extraordinary deliberation of the -destroyer. A photograph, reproduced in ' tho Observer, shows an extraordinary scene of destruction. Shrewd observerssoon inferred that the handiwork was that of a woman, and furtlier suspected that the perpetrator must be insane, but not so much as a hairpin could bs found as a 1 clue to the perpetrator. Soon, however, the workmen remembered that an old woman had protested violently when they were cutting down some old scraggy bluegums in preparation for .the work, and by sundry angry, harangues had made herself a nuisance. Certain letters had also been received by the Corporation authorities, and this gave the clue. A visit was paid by the police to the home of an elderly spinster living alone at Kent Town, 1 and wero refused admittance ; but she appeared at the window wi£h dishevelled hair and strange demeanour. A hatchet was in the yard, and a pair of goloshes, clay-covered, on tho doorstep, which fitted the tracks on the terrace. The old lady had been suffering from growing mental aberration, and her relatives have been arranging to place her under competent care. Her brother undertook to pay the damage, assessed at £50.