INTER-COLONIAL NEWS.

North Otago Times, Volume XI, Issue 352, 6 October 1868, Page 3

INTER-COLONIAL NEWS.

The following sensational story is related by a Melbourne evening journal : — At St. Kilda on Thursday night quite a sensation was created at the Q-eorge Hotel, where Mr M'Q-regor and othor gentlemen wore playing billiards, by Mrs M'G-regor rushing in to the hotel, and wildly asserting that robbers were in the house of Mr Aspinall, which was next door. A rapid reconraisance of Mr Aopinall's premises was made, when, instead of burglars, a goat, was found on the verandah, butting a rocking-horse, and Mrs Aspinall in a state of hysterical, terror. The following jottings about the aborigines are from the " GeelongKegister" :— " The Corio tribe is nearly extinct, as King Jerry and one male companion are all that are now known to reside in the district. The last named is far from well, and both are evidently shortening their existence by their habits of living. Yesterday, however, there were four more of the sable race in company with ' Jprry.' One of these is a woman known as ' Eliza,' wbo waa the wife of Timbo who died last year. The woman has previously gone off with a Q-ippsland native and it is said that her desertion drove c Timbo' to drink to drown his sorrows, which soon laid him low. The faithless one had not been heard of till yesterday, when she came in company with another woman and two men to see her native place, and the remnant of her tribe. ' Jerry' seemed to be well pleased with the attention shown him, and was escorting his friends through the town in high glee. Two gentlemen who of late have travelled much in Tictoria, state that the dying-out of th eeucalypti is progressing at a rate that would scarcely be credited by those that were not made aware of the fact by actual observation. They say that in some parts of the Colony to the north-east there are belts of timber of many miles in length and about an eighth of a mile in breadth, in which all the trees, without any exception, are decaying ; and that any person getting upon the line of this decaying vegetation would suppose he was looking at an English scene in winter, the branches being in almost every instance completely divested of foliage. There is little doubt (sayB the Ararat " Advertiser") but the course of a few years will have the effect of so thinning our forests, if this dying out of our timber continues, that it will have a perceptible influence on the climate. To the north, some of the squatters complain much of the decay of these trees, and they perceive a decided difference in the climate within the last few years. The Wimmera district, Victoria West, is likely to rival New Zealand in the matter of sport obtainable from the hunting ofboars. The "Ararat Advertiser," reporting Qn the subject, says : — " In the neighborhood of Mount Aripiles the mobs of wild pigs are increasing very fast, and some of the boars are becoming fierce as well as bold. The sport of running these animals down and killing them seems to offer quite as exciting amusement as their chase does in other countries. At one place, where wiW pigs are not uncommon, a private hunt was arranged about a week back, which gave quite aB much excitement as is said to be enjoyed at these hunts in G-ermany. An old boar was treed or ' stuck up,' and about half-a-dozen large kangaroo dogs and a mastiff gathered round the game. By the time two of the horsemen rode up the mastiff and the oldest of the kangaroo dogs were bleeding from terrible wounds. The dogs would not repeat the struggle at close quarters ; and though a couple of shots from a revolver were fired, they seemed to have no effect. One of the men decided upon the very dangerous expedient of dismounting and attacking the animal in the rear of a tree, which was a large one ; luckily for himself he got a fair aim at the ear, which so disabled or bewildered the boar that it became an easy matter to plant a couple of balls between the shoulders. Some adventurous spirits are talking of passing a day or two at Mount William, and trying a chase with some that are known to infest that place."

By an Order in Council, dated the 16th instant, six hundred acres of land at the extremity of Farewell Spit, in Cook's Strait, in the Province of Nelson, have been reserved as a site for a lighthouse. A party of five miners at Hokitika went down their shaft as usual one morning, but by some means or other the rope got off the windlass. The hole was so deep that although the men roared and hollowed for assistance, nobody could hear them, and consequently nobody came. There they remained all day, and would have remained all night, had it not been for an active-minded baker, who happened to observe in the evening, that the loavea supplied in the morning were untouched. Suspecting that some accident had occurred, he mentioned his fears to several miners. A party at once proceeded to the shaft, and hauled the captives from their cell.