Late Australian News.

Hastings Standard, Issue 156, 27 October 1896, Page 4

Late Australian News.

(X.Z. Tin. .)

Purine; the year ended !)lst August the population of the colony of South Australia increas'vl by H7ISH.

About 1 ofM) sheep have been poisoned on (i id gee Station (N.S.W) through outing a poisonous weed calle>l wild parsnip. The Inst of the old pioneers of the Dargo disLric", Andrew Dalton, was drowned in the Wcntworth river. The deceased, who was 8(> years of age, had bren looking for a horse, and the b idle w; s hanging ov< r his shoulder when the body was found. A terrific windstorm broke over the Albury district the other day. Trees were- uprooted in every direction, and much damage was done to the fences by the falling timber. The greater portion of what little fruit was left a f ter the di-astiois hailstorm of a previous day has now been lost. In the course of an interview Albert Trott said : Ranjitsinhji is the greatest wonder in Kngland. He has a marvel oils pull stroke, and has no weak point in his batting. He fields as though he had no back bone, and bowls a good length medium-paced ball. He fields usually at short-slip. Trott was delighted with him. Four lads, while hunting for native cats at Flagstaff (hilly. Dundas. came across the skeleton of a man half buried in the debris caused by a water wash. The clothing was all rotten, but the remains were identified by means of a peculiar buckk- on the belt as the body of a man named Alfred. Willis, aged -10, a resident of I'.rmington, who was missed 011 the 19th June, In!)."). At a farm known as Cleveland, two miles from Heidelberg, Victoria, one of the farm hands ijnarrelled with a fellow - workman, and having been worsted by Walshe with lists, he iired four shots from a revolver at him. The cause of the quarrel was very trivial. Walshe was speaking to another farm hand and I'-arnes interrupted him. None of the shots took effect. Diamonds, it has been discovered at I'athurst, are easily distinguished from paste by me tns of the "X '' rays. If the stone, whither in its setting or i not, he examined under a dark cloth, through which the l'ontgen rays are ! passing, it glows brilliantly if <1 diamond. but not so if paste or glass. If the stone b • examined 0:1 a fluorescent screen it appears perfectly transparent if a genuine diamond, and opaque if not. A sculling match has been arranged to take place over the Raymond terrace course of three miles, on the Hunter river, on December sth, between -T. Ford, of Hexham, and R. Tres.-ider, of Carrington, in best-and-best boats, for £'.">o a side, with the option of increasing the stake:, to £IOO a side. Ford is also about to enter into a match to row Fennessy, of tin l Clarence river, for a substantial stake. The horses belonging to Messrs Fitzgerald Bros.' Circus, which were refused admission into Victoria, owing to having lately returned from Queensland, were ultimately allowed to cross after undergoing the necessary oiling. At their first performance at Corowa a storm completely wrecked the tent. Fortunately, no one was injured, although numbers had a narrow escape. A remarkably clever invention has just been patented by Mrs Lousia Lawson, the well-known Sydney lady journalist, and accepted by the New South Wales Government for use in the Postal Department. It consists in brief of a cheap, simple and expeditious method of fastening and sealing mail bags, and is about as nearly perfect as regards the requirements of such an article as one could readily imagine. It may interest many to know that Mrs Lawson is the mother of Henry Lawson, the Australian poet and story writer. A party consisting of a number of young fellows from Cooma visited the Rosebrook Caves 011 Sunday last, and had rather an unpleasant experience. They were exploring the caves, and were unable to find the aperture through which they had entered. After groping along several passages for about three or four hours, they found a place of egress. One of the party proceeded to ascend a rope ladder, and after getting up about loft the rope gave away, and precipitated him to the bottom, with about half a ton of earth. The explorers felt the first symptoms of suffocation, as there was 110 ventilation except the caves' cell entrance.