AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 173, 24 July 1888, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Victoria. Applications was made to the Metropolitan Licensing Bench, Melbourne, for a transfer to Donald Dinnie, the well-known athlete, of the license for the Rose and Crown Hotel, Fleming-ton-road. Mr Donovan appeared for the transferee, and Inspector Brown opposed the appl cation on behalf of the police. Evidence was called to show that Dinnie had been several times convicted for assault and abusive language, and that during his occupancy of the Croxton Park Hotel the house had been a nuisance to the neighborhood, on account of the numbers of persons who visited it on Sundays. In reply to these charges, Mr Donovan pointed out that no convictions for Sunday trading had been proved against his client, and that the assaults on which so much stress was laid were of trivial character. In one instance Dinnie had been fined for ejecting a bailiff from his premises, a very natural and pardonable proceeding, which he ventured to think the Chairman would scarcely characterise as an offence. On another occasion, a dispute had occurred between Dinnie and a woman employed by him as cook, and public sympathy being of course with the woman, the affair had been magnified by the police into an assault The charge of abusive language amounted simply to this: that at Mooroopua. where Dinnie was conducting an athletic programme, some man had endeavored to pass in as a “ dead head,” and Dinnie, in asking

a policeman to take the intruder in charge, had in his excitement addressed the constable as “ Bobby.” The Chairman said that if they were to judge of the transferee's future conduct by what had occurred in the past, several policemen would have to be told off to watch the house There was evidence that Sunday after Sunday Dinnie’s hotel had been visited by numbers of voung men who were pr >bably attracted by the fact that the licensee had won a reputation as a wrestler. The fact that a man had this reputation was in itself a strong reason for considering him an improper person to hold a license The application was therefore refused.

George Brundell and George Chapman were brought up before the Footseray Court on the charge of ill-treating a horse. The evidence for the prosecution showed that Brundell and Chapman unmercifully beat a horse that had fallen down Brundell was striking it on the head with a broken shaft, while Chapman flogged it with a whip and kicked it. A passer by begged them to get the animal up, and subsequently got it up himself, and took off the harness, which was shown in Court covered with blood.

A veterinary surgeon gave evidence that the horse had been most cruelly treated. It took him three hours to wash off the blood with which it was covered. In addition to one side of the animal’s nose being broken, it had been stabbed in the neck, the hair kicked off its shins, some of its ribs were fractured, and it was also suffering from some internal injury. It ought to have been shot at once. The chairman, in delivering judgment, said that he had never heard of such a case of brutal cruelty. He would have hked to order a flogging, with twelve months’ imprisonment, but the law only allowed a fine of £lO. Each of the defendants was fined £l5 ss, including £6 5s costs. The horse, which was outside the Court while the ease proceeded, presented a shocking spectacle, and two of the Magistrates signed an order for its destruction. A man supposed to be the person seen hurriedly leaving the hut at Rlmore, in which the man recently murdered was camping, has been arrested on a charge of vagrancy. He had lost his left hand, and in other respects tallied with the description except in his clothing, which, if he is , the man wanted, has evidently been • changed. He denied to the Court all

knowledge or the tnuraer, out iremoiea verv much. He also denied that he had ever been at Elmore, but afterwards acknowledged that ;e had been there twice. He also »a‘d that he had never heard anything about the murder, but afterwards said that he had been told about it by a swagger., A later telegram says that the enquiries of the detectives have thrown considerable light upon the recent shocking murder at Elmore. It now transpires that the murdered man was John Duggan, a farm laborer, residing at Oxendale, but generally travelling round the country. He was of the most

miserly disposition, and had saved a sum of several hundred pounds, which was lodged iu one of the local banks When he was not working ho would beg his way round the country He had deposit receipts for over £690 on him before the murder, and he is also believed to have had a good deal of cash. A deposit receipt was found in High-street a week ago by a man named Hoggan, who sent it to the

bank. The circumstance did not at the time arouse any suspicions, as it wa< not thought to have any connection with the murder. This discovery will put enquiries on a fresh basis, as it supplies a motive for the crime. Two men, named Lewis alias Hookie, ■end Williams, have been arrested at Malsbury and Maryborough respecI titoly, Mid aro In custody on suaplolou.