AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Evening Star, Issue 14053, 7 May 1909, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

'Another method adopted <by Chinese in smuggling opium was discovered •at Sydney. The luggage Of seventy .Chinese passengers who had arrived by the steamer Empire, and placed in quarantine,;was examined. but it proved a resultless search. A special examination was then made by twr, Customs officers of the belongings of. edit Chinese .stewards. Among the Ingiauc were five iron trunks, covered with canvas inside. Each of these trunks was fitted into another trunk, and in the vacant spaces between the trunks about 300 t.ns oi opium were found.

The story of an extraordinary romance was nmolded at the Hobart Court on April -“. when tiie inquiry into the circumstances of the death, of Auriel Langdale on April l wa,-> resumed. The evidence (bowed that for weeks prior to the unfortunate gnl s death she and her youthful lover, alter Altweil, had agreed to take their* lives, ostensibly to demonstrate their resentment because of the deceased’s stepmothers refusal to allow them to marry. They solemnly and openly vowed that separation meant suicide to both of them. On one occasion, it appears, the two inamed to the riverside in the still of night, with tlw object. according to the testimony of at least one witness, of finding eternal rest in Die waters of the Derwent, locked in each other’s arms. They waiter] for several hours, in the hope that Die moon would go clown, in order that they might pen-form the contemplated deed in darkness. But the moon, shone on, and so the dejected lovere’ plans were providentially upset. Sonic weeks later, however, they demonstrated their sincerity of their strange decimation under the most dramatic circumstances, which resulted in the death of the girl, and the indictment of her lover on a serious criminal charge. During a. debate on the question of compulsory miiitaiy training at the Libor Congress- in Sydney, Mr Conlls, one of the delegates from, the Barrier branch of Die A.M.A., said:—"When this country becomes fit to defend, then I will be prepared to defend it. Td sooner be shot in the back than bo conqtelled to defend it as it is. My troubles if any nation wants to come to Australia and capture it. I don't care even if the Japs take it. 1 say this because we could not live under worse conditions if any other nation owned Australia.—(Dissent.) Well, perhaps the Sydney people do live under satisfactory conditions, but tire people don't in the part of the country I come from. To attempt to compel mo to defend a country that won't defend me or give mo a livelihood under decent conditions is simply ridiculous. I repeat that this country hasn't treated me so well that I am going to take u;. arms to defend it.” At a meeting of the Temora’ Municipal Council. Mr Saunders, town clerk, said ho o;-.l rot intend to continue in office. It was impossible for an honest man to hold ;> public; position in Temora, owing to the t . i. ; cs of a. clique in town, wlm.se members ■- " A a •> vigilant public officer down. ‘ - fit- had been made unbearable ever .- n r lie had become town clerk. Aidor- . r;i p:cr-ecl Mr Saunders to reconsider his '■ - i; m. and expressed the opinion that lhar was no, more capable officer in the Mr Saunders thanked the aldermen -•a. tae courtesy and kindness always i .ioun. him, but declined to reconsider his decision. He declared that Temora was. no place for an honest man. , -'t . l he Grafton Circuit Court last week brancis Philip Cant illy was charged with manslaughter. Accused was the keeper of' a trine shop between Grafton andCopmanshurfit, and on sth March two men named Barrett and Christie went there and commenced drinking. Towards night the men took charge of the place, threatened to murder Cantilly, and bombarded the house with empty bottles, smashing windows and wounding Cantilly in the arm. The ’alter, to frighten the men, fired a shot gun through the window into the darkness. Barrett was passing at the moment, and received the charge, which caused his. death. After hearing the evidence for the prosecution,. His Honor said that Barrett brought his trouble on himself. He then withdrew the caw? from the jury, and discharged Cantilly. In the Brisbane Police Court John M'Loughlin (47) was charged on remand with having, on January, 1895, at Johannesburg, murdered George Stevenson and Hadji Joseph Mustafla. A remand was granted for a week. The Prisoner said : I have been three years at. St. Helena, and if the South African police had anything against me they ought to have worked it up before I came out,—The Police Magistrate : A statement like that will do you no good. lon will bo remanded from week to week; until the officer comes, providing ho arrives in reasonable time—.say, eight or ten weeks.—M'Loughlin (indignantly) : It is very pleasant being remanded day after day. Twelve years ago I was detained at Auckland, New' Zealand, in a manner something similar to this. They corresponded with' the Boevs for two months, and they found that they had nothing against me, and let me go. Now here they are trying to rake up a similar c hanre on no grounds at all.—The Pol'ce Magistrate: I have seen the depositions :rd the grounds upon which the warrant •' . a issued. lam perfectly convinced that 'here is a prima facie case to be made out i.-aiust yon in South Africa,.—M'Lough- '■ ri ■' D is a wonder that the police are sot here before now. Of course, an EngI 'bnian can’t get any chance in the colons- 1 rin quite satisfied of that. It is a (i’.iro to lie an Englishman out here. T lie prisoner was removed to the cell?, protesting that an Englishman could get no justice in the colonies. Robert Bfandeth Parry, a well-known Sydney solicitor, who failed to appear at Die Water Police Court when his name was called, nt connection with an, information charging him with stealing, was ; rrested at Watson Bay. Ho was subsequently brought before the Court, and charged with stealing, at Sydney, on Mareh 12, the sum of £3OO, the property of the trustees of the Grand Lodge of the United Order of Druids, and also with stealing, at Sydney, on March 24, the sum of £193, tho property of John Ferns Alford. The case was remanded.

_ A lad named George Jones was. at the North Melbourne Court, before Dr Cole, P.M. (chairman), charged with playing "two-up.’ Constable Thomas said he saw Jones and several others playing the game in Dryburgh street at half-past 10 p.rn. He arrested Jones, and the .otheis got away. Sergeant Mollov said Jones was .brought to the Hotham Hill Police Station. He would not give the names of his companions, and was therefore locked up. Ho would not have been locked up if he had said who the otheis were. Dr Cole said the lad would be discharged, and suggested that he should put 10s m the poor box. 'The police should not have attempted to bribe Jones, so to speak, in respect to bis liberty. They had no right to make conditions with him. The Tad gave his name and address. His father was at the watchhouse, and it was a case in which a'summons would have been sufficient. The youth should not have been locked up at all.

The Widgiewa Estate, situate on the Colombo, in Riverina, and consisting of about 90,000 acres of first class grazing country, splendidly improved, and with -rcat water facilities, has been sold by Mr J. S. Horsfall to Messrs F. S. FaikineV and Sons, of Boonoke, together with the cattle, horses, working plant, furniture, and effects, hut not the sheep, which are reserved for sale bv private contract, from lime to .time, in lots to suit purchasers, and in order to give every facility to buyers from South America, South Africa, mid other distant places, who have been purchasers for years past. Mr Horafall retains possession of the estate for six nonths. The whole of the sheep, which, uvimr to the dry seasons, have been reb'c'd bv sales of wethers to about 33,000, ■> f which 21,000 are breeding ewes, with lambs at foot, are now for disposal, and the famous stud flock, which has won so ninny prizes, and from which animals have been sold at such high prices, ranging up to 1.000 guineas each for rams, and 200 guineas each for ewes, will now be dispersed, none being reserved, as the owner is giving up stud breeding, being unable, from his impaired health, to devote the necessary time and attention to it. A fair price, reported to he between £200,000 arid £250,000, baa been realised, after i oyer six

months’ negotiations, and the terms are cash. •*

■ At the Narrated Police Court a young man, who gave the name of Patrick Alurphy, pleaded guilty to a charge of a serious character, and was sentenced by the police- magistrate to four months’ imprisonment in -■ Tamworth Gaol. In connection' with this case, an extraordinary development occurred. The police arrested, and brought before-the Court, two -men appearance, could hardly, be told apart. One was a complete stranger to the town, and the other well known locally. They were dressed almost exactly the same, even to wearing white boots. Both were positively identified by two females as the person guilty of a serious offence on April 10; Finger-print evidence convicted Murphy, the other man being discharged. Some of the democrats of the New South Wales Labor Congress entirely ISil to see why there should be first class compartments on (he railways, 'and one of the delegates accordingly sought to have this division of abolished. He struck a responsive chord in the hearts of all present. Indeed, when he proposed that this revolution should be brought about by easy stages—in short, that it should first be tried on suburban lines—the others wore quite unable to understand why only half a loaf should be demanded when they desired the full 21b. Hence they promptly decided to ask that there should he only one class on all the railways. The grievance voiced by the majority, of the speakers was that in the second class cars passengers are frequently "stuffed like sardines,’ while the other compartments are practically empty. One delegate related that when he travelled recently to Newcastle under these conditions' of overcrowding he strolled along at the station, impelled by curiosity, as far as the first class car, and saw that it only contained one man, and that he was a member of the parliamentary Labor party. “ Well the capitalists are able to pay for the luxunes they enjoy,” declared one member, who was not willing to go the whole length with his comrades, "and if these luxuries are abolished the workmen who are employed in supplying them will suffer.” To this another man immediately retorted that the capitalists did not pay for the extra privileges—that these were really paid lor by the second class passengers in their proportion of contributions to the railway revenue. A strong point made in the debate was that serious accidents sometimes occurred through overcrowding in the second class on suburban lines. Incidentally, a Broken Hill representative informed the Congress that so deeply was his union impressed with the right of their delegates to: .travel, .under the oest conditions when on unionist business that they had decided to pay first class fares for them, " because, as ho explained, “ they arc entitled to as good accommodation as any plutocrat who ever travelled.” The news that Rosser and Lyons w r ere acquitted on charges of having maliciouslydamaged the railway line running through the Proprietary and Block 10 mines at Broken Hill was received with great enthusiasm. Soon after the news was posted groups of men could be seen wildly cheering at tiie Trades Hall, and along the picket lines there wore demonstrative expressions of approval at the result of the trial, and the opinion was freely expressed that after Rosser’s acquittal none of the otner accused would be convicted. The jury brought in a verdict of "Not guilty.” The foreman said that the jury did hot think the evidence was strong enough to convict and gave the accused the benefit Oi the doubt. Rosser was discharged, and on leaving the'court was carried shoulderhigh down the main street. There was a lot of cheering. Lyons was retained in custody, he being a prisoner undorfoiim a sentence for assault ° . °