Late Australian News.

Hastings Standard, Issue 129, 24 September 1896, Page 4

Late Australian News.

[N.Z. Times.] Up to the present the four thieves who made the raid upon the Sydney Tramway and Omnibus Company's stables at Rushcutters' Bay have evaded arrest. A middle-aged woman named Mary Boniface, widow, residing at Carlton, Victoria, entered the shop of a produce merchant and said, " I am going to die here," and gashed her throat with a razor. She is now in the hospital. Mr Alexander Montgomery (M.A.), the Government Geologist of Tasmania, has tendered his resignation, he having accepted the position of manager of the Kauri Freehold Gold Company'* pvopert'-*. Auckland. Mr Montgomery «iil be much missed on the T&sm&man mining fields. Very little new cane-planting is expected in the New South Wales districts this spring. The heavy losses through the late severe frosts, added to the uncertainty as to the future prospects of the sugar industry, are inducing many farmers to relinquish cane-growing and embark in dairying operations

Onetta and Sala, two miners from the Macqnarie river, New South Wales, exhibited in Orange a diamond found by them near the river 20 miles from that town. It weighed 2grs, and is said to be worth £2 10s. This is the first found by them, but a party in the same neighborhood discovered 25, mostly small. A young man named George Woods, a bricklayer, when walking through a paddock about nine miles from Temora, New South Wales, trod on a brown snake, which bit at him savagely, the fangs puncturing his clothing, but just grazing the skin of his leg. Woods walked into Dr Crawford's surgery as soon as possible, and he was at once treated for snakebite. Both of Wood's legs swelled to an abnormal extent, but beyond that he was none the worse. Buildings in Norseman, Western Australia, aggregating over £BO,OOO in value, have lately been contracted for. All of them are to be of wood and iron. The Brooklet Dairy Factory at Ballarat, New South Wales, for the month ended the 20th August treated 26,914 gallons of milk for 11,5211b butter. Suppliers were paid at the rate of 4d per gallon of milk. It is stated that the Queensland blackfellovv supposed to be suffering from leprosy, and who escapeed from the police some weeks ago, has been captured again. The residence of a farmer named Walters, near Wollongbar, New South W r ales, was struck by lightning during a recent storm. A number of weatherboards were torn off and the curtains of the beds were scorched without injuring the inmates, who however received severe shocks.

A Cooktown telegram states that men who have returned from the Starcke river rush report that the richness of the new couutry discovered byWebb and party has been much exaggerated. Only about 20 men are said to be making more than tucker, while the remaining 50 are not earning even that. Many" are about to return from the field. A number of difficulties have arisen in connection with the labor question at Perth and Fremantle. Many men of different trades are insisting on receiving higher wages. The demand in some instances has been conceded, while in others negotiations are still proceeding. One or two small gangs of men employed in the duplication of the Perth and Fremantle line are on strike for higher wages. Staff-Sergeant W'asson, while engaged at the sham fight by Mounted ltifles at Bathurst, narrowly escaped being killed. He was galloping down hill and looking in the direction of a party of the riflemen when his horse came to a wire fence which it tried to jump, but failed, and fell with the rider, who was picked up insensible, his head being badly cut. Dr. Machattie, who is captain of the corps, was speedily in attendance, and StaffSergeant Wasson was removed from the ground. Victor Green, nine years of age, residing at Surrey Hills, Sydney, on the 4th inst. had two of his fingers crushed in a merry-go-round, Moore Park. They were amputated at the first joint, and on the following Friday the stitches were taken out. Shortly afterwards he was afflicted with paralysis, and was readmitted to the hospital on Sunday, 13th, when the hand was amputated. He died next morning. A sad drowning fatality occurred on the 12 th instant at Goulburn to Gertrude Surety, aged 19. She went to bathe in the Wollondilly river above the weir. She was accompanied by two younger sisters. The unfortunate girl got beyond her depth. She reappeared once, cried out " Good-bye," and sank. One of her sisters ran home for help, and the other went to the road. The latter obtained the assistance of several men, who recovered the body. Efforts to restore animation failed.

The evidence in a money-lending transaction which came before the County Court, Melbourne, showed that the borrower for an actual loan of £27 undertook to pay £l3O, with 10 per cent, interest. At the Melbourne Synagogue, durthe services in honor of their New Year feast, the Eabbi, the Rev. Dr Abrahams, preached a striking sermon. In the course of his remarks Dr Abrahams said : —They believed that every nation would have the same divine assistance to reach a future state. But as] a kingdom of priests the responsibility, which was great, would devolve upon them to show that they fully realised their position, and would do the best they possibly could to disseminate such views as to lead other denominations to think that they were deserving of the high position in which the Supreme Being had placed them. He was painfully surprised to hear it asserted that the Jews were represented in the Legislature and in public institutions out of all proportion to their numbers. An assertion of this character betrayed a totally mistaken conception of the true factsof the case. Leaders in public institution were elected on the score of citizenship, and not of religion. The particular creed to which a representative man might belong was of no more consequence to his capacity for fulfilling his position than was the color of his hair. It was always advisable, nay, indispensable, to place in positions of trust men who held strcng religious convictions rather than those devoid of faith's restraining force. But so long as those fundamental principles which the Jews first taught the world formed the rule of conduct for a public man it mattered little tot his fitness under the guise of what particular creed he appeared, whether Judaism, Roman Catholicism, or Anglicism.