AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1790, 1 May 1874, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

The penalties of the Education Act are to be enforced at Terang. The Victorian Co-operative Association^is to be wound up.

The Chines Board of Advice has expressed itself opposed to religious teaching in State schools.

The miners' strike t*t St. Arnaud is at an end, and Mr J. B* Edwards, the new manager, has put men on in the mine at L 2 10s. for eight hours' work for firstclass miners.

Messrs. William Tyrrell Evans and Willian Robert Merry have registered a patent for a flax harvester, which they affirm will extract, cleanse, and bind the flax at one and the same time.

A man named William Saunders died recently at Stawell, through swallowing a bone, a piece of which had lodged in his throat, lacerating the sesophagus,, and it gradually cut into the aorta, death resulting from hemorrhage.

A Mrs Mitchell and her groom* have just been fined at Mount Gambier L 25, with costs, for illegally importing a Victorian buggy across the border without paying the necessary duty. The question of the confiscation of the buggy has been referred to the Collector of Customs.

Mr A. L. Tucker, a candidate for Oollingwood, announced himself as a staunch protectionist, and said he would support the tariff in its enjirity. .He was in favour of a progressive land tax and a tax on all unwashed wool that was exported from the colony. He was opposed to payment of members, and would do away with the tax on tea and sugar. He would not pledge himself to vote for the Government scheme for reform of the Upper House unless he knew what course the Government would adopt if the Upper House rejected the Bill.

A correspondent of the Yass Courier informs that journal that at Cowra, on the 19th March, a stranger, who had been drinking, was attacked by delirium, tremens in Ms bedroom. In the night he had endeavoured to open the door, and, failing, he essayed to force his way out by the window. In the morning the sashes and panes of the window were founa smashed to pieces, and the man himself terribly gashed, lying dead in a pool of blood in the room. The floor of the room was marked all over with the blood-stained tracks of his hands and knees, as if the man had been crawling about the room for some time before his death.

A ghost story has' arisen out of the lamentable Bung Bong tragedy. Some ten days since three men, residents of Buns; Bong, being out late on business, and having occasion to pass dose by the scene of the late, horrors, saw distinctly four persons (a man and three children), whom they instantly- recognised as the suicide and his family, approach the house and enter — or appear to do so — by the door. * All three saw the apparition, and remarked to each other on ifs singularity. They then tried the door, and, finding it securely locked, departed to their homes sadly and silently, fully impressed with the belief that they had see* a ghost, or rather four ghosts.

• { Some cachinnation was caused in the County Court," says the '.Taibot Leader,' "by a remark of Judge Forbes; made with that dry humour for which his Honor is noted. In the case of M 'Donald v. Price, action to recover the value of a saddle and bridle lost after, as alleged, being left in the defendant's care, one of the witnesses deposed that the plaintiff, on finding his property not forthcoming, knocked him down and so" ill-treated him that he was ill fora week. f Ah,' said the Judge, ' you mean to say he sat upon you instead of the saddle.' ' Yes, your Honor,' was the answer, given with a simplicity which: added to' the mirth evoked by the question." The devouring of a boy by an alligator. is, reported by the Port Denison Titifres. "On the evening of the 6th instant, 4 boy aged 15 years, the son of Mr P"Qtt§r. of Euri Creek, was dragged by an aligator into a waterhole close to his father's house. It appears that this boy and his elder brother had been engaged getting pigs into a 3ty, and that the poor lad who is gone went to the edge of the waterhole to wash a greenhide rope, which they had been using with the pigs. Whilst he was so engaged, his little s|ster, wliq was sitting on the bankliard" by, saw the. alligator seize the boy by the, leg, and drag him under water. She gave the alarm, but it was,: of .course, too late : the brute had dragged the boy down to the bottom, and nothing more was seen of

him for several days, when a leg and o portion of his clothing floated to the surface." Mr George Butchart was removed to the Cremorne Asylum on the 28th March on the strength of medical certificates by Drs. James Robertson and William Thotnsoo, showing that he was unfit to remain at large. In addition to these, his solicitor Mr Stewart, has made a declaration, the object of which is to show that Mr Butchart's accounts are strictly correct, and that, if his desire was to become possessed of money, he could have easily had it without resorting to forgery. It appears on the 25th March he had cash to his credit in different banks amounting to L 339, besides Bhares in the Colonial Bank standing in his own name of the value of some L 1,200, debentures one of Bank of Victoria of the value of L 3.500, and debentures and scrip in the Melbourne Banking Company of the value of L7OO or LBOO. All these were at his disposal, and could have been withdrawn by him at any moment and converted into cash, neither of the banks having any lien or charge upon them whatever. The Sydney Morning Herald of March 25 has the following on telegraplu'c communication with New Zealand and Europe :— " We understand that Captain Audley Coote, the representative of Messrs. Siemens Brothers, had an interview with the Hon. Henry Parkes (Colonial Secretary and Premier), and the Hon. Saul Samuel (Postmaster-General), and submitted proposals for the laying of a submarine telegraph cable between New Zealand and the coast of this colony. This cable, it is proposed, shall be landed on the N.S.W. coast at Broken Bay. Communication would then be continued northward, through New South Wales and Queenstown, and Normantown, and thence, by submarine cable, to Singapore and Moulamein. The Governments of New Zealand and Queensland have already obtained Parliamentary sanction to act conjointly with this colony in the matter, and it is understood that the New South Wales Government will ask Parliament for similar authority in the course of a few days.