VICTORIA.

Evening Post, Volume LXXII, Issue 72, 22 September 1906, Page 9

VICTORIA.

Tho Victorian Premier has placed £2000 oL M)be Estimates as a grant towards a fund for providing a farm und. home for deaf'and dumb adults of weak intellect, ,md those afflicted with othei infirmities m addition to the 'oss ot ipeech. The grant js to be conditional upon £2000 being raised by public subscription. A painful sensation was caused on Sunday, 9th inst., in the M'lntyre-slreet Methodist Church, Bendigo, by the sudden death of Mr. George Brown, aged 73, one of the worshippers. He had jusl bent lorward in prayer when he fell to the floor, and on being raised it was found that ne bad expired V .Arthur Coleman, a lad of fourteen, residing at Geelong, Victoria, wn> reproved by his parents for a slight offence. In o fit of temper ne obtaii^'d a bottle containing liniment and swallowe<J most of it. Shortly* afterwards he became seriously ill, and was taken to tho hospital out died,a few minutes after his admission. Speaking at a meeting in connection with tne re-opening of Christ Church, Savmour, Victoria, Bishop Armstrong, of Wangaratta, referring to the gambling evil, said the bishops did not declare that church raffitb were wrong. What they did eny was, whether right or wrong, they were decidedly inexpedient, a^d he thought they had good reasons for saying so. They might not be wrong, but they might prove the beginning, and that was »ybat the churches mutt oppose. Gambling had taken a strong root in the Commonwealth and was e«6entiallj- tho sin of a degenerate people. He hoped he would never have to say that the sign of degeneracy was "visible in this young, strong community. The same bishop in opening the synod of his dioc«se spoke al,al, length on the^rme question, and condemned the church bazaar raffles. "Belter," he said, "to worship in a shed or under a tree thon in a cathedral raised by means which they knew in their hearts Christ would condemn." Victoriar papers are filled with details of the extrr.ordtn-ry floods with which the State has been visited. There have been enormous losses of stock « A destruction of property, Mid many na-row escapes, but the loss of life amornts to two, both boys. A boy named Doherty, reaching for a floating pioce oi wood near the NapieT-street bridge, Melbourne, overbalanced himself, and was carried away, and another boy, trying to save him, nearly lost his own liie. Later, a constable and another man, seeking the body, had their boat upset and were rescued with difficulty. At^Dandenong a boy named Tulan fell into a flooded creek and was drowned. In the Bendigodistrict a lady and a gentleman went out for a drive. They wers unable to

return, as their vehicle got overturned by the rush of water, and they wera obliged to take refuge in a tree, where they remained all night. Next morning they were rescued by a boat, At Maribyrnong the water filled tho lower storey of the Angler's Arms Hotel, and rose a foot above the upper floor; and at the Maribyrnong Hotel the water rose to the top of the lamp, which la on a post seven feet high. A funeral .at Wit.iamstown had to be postponed, the grave being fuil of water. At Footscray residents in low-lying pairt6 were rescued by the police in boats at night) . with much difficulty and danger. A woman who had given birth to twins two days before was taken into a boat with ber babies at 1 a.m. The boat broke loose, and wa« caught in the current and sw.;pt away. Wading up to their breasts, and at times up to their necks, two constables followed th<> boat and caught up to it. Then they lifted the mother and children out and carried them, the mother being in a state of collapse, nearly two miles to a place of safety at three o'clock in the morning. The whole of this area formerly known as Kensington Swamp, was a rushing sheet of water nearly a mile wide. All the houses in it were , submerged, and some of them wrecked and swept away. The Melbourne abattoirs were flooded ten feet deep, and it wo* at first supposed that all the stock yarded there, vaued at £20,000, weie lost, but in the morning several hundred sheep were found browsing on bigl* grouud, which they had mana -ed to ->-ea-cb. during the darkness. In -the abattoirs building the eteam engine and the electric dynamos were swamped, and had to he dug out of the silt in •which' they werfa embedded. Near Echuca, a flock of L7OO sheep and lambs on Whaiparilla Station, supposed^ to have bEen swept ' away,' was discovered on three-quarters of an - acre of rising ground near the river. Tho Federal Government lent forty military tents for the use of washed-out settlers ia the village settlement.