AUSTRALIAN GOSSIP.

Grey River Argus, Volume XV, Issue 1834, 22 June 1874, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN GOSSIP.

[MELBOURNE CORRESPONDENT OP OTAGO

DAILY TIMES.]

I In New South Wales, the excitement about the contemplated release of the bushranger Gardiner increases in intensity, and there is talk of getting up a petition to the Home Government to recall the Governor, should the course be persisted in. Certainly it is a monstrous blunder out of consideration for a scoundrel that, as the late Chief Justice said, " most unrighteously" escaped the gallows on which His companions were hanged, and who has now gone through the wretched farce ot a good repentance to determine to occasion such uneasiness to the law-abiding citizens of the Colony. There have been a great many cases of bushranging in that Colony of late, and in Sydney garotte robberies have been bo frequent as to call for the introduction of a Bill to provide for flogging in such cases. A bushranger was hanged at Goulburn the other day who confessed to having committed four murders. And it is in a community so situated that the Government, which in this case means the Governor, persists in releasing the notorious leader of the bushrangers of the Colony, who kept the whole country in terror for years, and whose pardon would do more to encourage lawless outrage than any other circumstance that could possibly happen. Sydney Punch the other day had a capital cartoon, "Throwing off the Mask," showing Gardiner pitching aside his Bible, prayer-books, bundles of tracts, 'and mask of pious hypocrisy, as he gallops away, mounted on the Governor's racehorse Fitzyattendon, and with his belt 'stuck full of revolvers ready for work.

There is no doubt that Sir Hercules Robinson has lost a good deal of popularity by his part in this bad business, and another matter has not tended to increase it. Ih was recently notified that the Governor, finding that the accommojdation available was not sufficient for more than some 500 guests, had determined not to give a birthday ball this year, but, instead, had made up his mind : to give a treat of plum pudding and roast beef to the inmates of the Benevolent 'Asylum and other charaties. At first •there was a good deal of praise of this " genuine and disinterested benevolence " 'awarded by those whose chance of being invited to the ball was infinitesimal. But shortly there was another strain heard. Someone was kind enough to suggest that ■the real reason of not giving ': the usual entertainment was that the Governor had before felt a difficulty in excluding the. very large number of wealthy but not respectable people who considered that they had a right to be asked, but whose company was not considered desirable. The Sydney Post says of the matter \—" It is all very well to set down the discontinuance of the birthday ball to the smallness of the rooms at Government House. The real difficulty lies in the apparent impossibility of excluding moneyed larrikins, male and female. At the last ball a disturbance took place that very near, culminated in a free fight in the hall, and the cannibal habits of some of the guests, who, at supper time, snatched the poultry off the tables, and tore the birds to pieces with their hands and teeth, to say nothing of those whose retirement was only effected with the aid of grinning babbies, so disgusted the vice-regal party that the present alteration is not to be wondered at."

Criticism on the subject being thus pleasantly commenced, has been pursued in an equally amicable spirit. Correspondents have written to the paper* to argue that all of the reasons assigned have been mere hollow pretexts, and that the real reason is that the Governor spends so much money on his racehorses that he has not any to spend on the hospitalities due to his position. According to this authority, the money dropped at Raridwick is eoonomised by withholding the vice-regal annual entertainment in honor of her Majesty. So that it is quite evident that although Colonial Governorships are very snug positions, they are not always perfect beds of roses.

An action was brought by a gentleman and lady of West Maitland against, the Bishop of Newcastle for an impudent slander, of. which that " reverend father" is found by the verdict of the jurjfto be guilty. The Bishop had heard some tales from some tattling churchwardens, which, to his pure mind, conclusively proved the existence of improper relations between the Incumbent of West Maitland and a lady of his flock— a married lady, wife of a gentleman of scholarship and character, and herself highly educated and of irreproachable reputation. Before examining evidence the Bishop called upon the clergyman to resign. The clergyman} Mr Thaokery, deolined to

tion of a " sneak." The injured churchwarden explained that he was not "sneaking around," but was merely " walking up and down to watch whether the rumor was true." And for listening with an old woman's greedy credulity to all the tattle, and for, npon the strength of it, slandering the honor.of a .virtuous lady, this.bishop was treated by the jury with the absurd leniency implied in damages to the amount of 403. In addition, he obtained the contempt of honest men, bufcthisis a small matter.