LATER ENGLISH AND AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue XII, 3 July 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

LATER ENGLISH AND AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

[PBB S.S 1 HBBO,' TROM SYDNEY.] LATER CABLEGRAMS. THE PACIFIC MAIL SERVICE. TENDER ACCEPTED. THE 'CITY OF -MELBOURNE'S' DEPABSURE. Loxdon, June 22. Thx Pcpe, In replying to a deputation from the Roman nobles, on the anniversary of his coronation, said that the rumours of his reccaciliation with the Italian Government wire undeserving of mention. The nail via Torres Straits has been delivered h London. In tfe cases, Winter v. the Queen and McMillin v. tho Queen, wherein the plaintiffs soight to compel the Crown to give them g-ant# of land nnder the certificate clauses of the Victoria Land Act, the Supreme 3ourt of Victoria gavo judgment on the 13th May, 1874, in favour of the defendants, an appeal to the Privy Council has resulted la judgment against the Crown with costs. The case of Ettershank and Glass v. the Queer, an appeal by the Crown againßt a decision of the Victorian Court, that Crown grants must be issued to the assignees of selectors under the certificate clauses of the Land Act, was dismissed without costs.

In the case of the Colonial Bank of Victoria v. Etterehnnk, the plaintiffs sued upon two promissory notes given by the defendant iu favour of Mr. Donald Ferguson and Mr. A. Stackpoole, and discounted by the bank. The defence was that Mr. Burnes, the manager of the bank, had -waived the plaintiffs right to recover the amount of the bills. To this it was answered that the manager had no authority to abandon the claim of the bank to any property that belonged to it. The Court held, that the manager had power to bind the bank, and a verdict returned for the defendant was therefore sustained. Tho appeal was dismissed with costs. The French Assembly have passed tho second reading of the Public Works Bill. A German note cordially thanks Belgium for the Duchesne investigation, and also foe supplementary penal legislation. A telegram of the New Zealand Loan Mercantile Agency, dated London, June 20, states that their stock of tallow of all sorts is 17,000 casks. Mutton is worth £43 per ton; beef, £41. The copper market is quiet. Wallaroo and Burra worth £90. Adelaide wheat is worth 475. The New Zealand hemp market is quiet; fine is worth £26 per ton. The public sales have comprised 500 bales.

AUSTRALIAN. Our files per Hero are to the evening of the j 2Gth ultimo, from which we extract as follows :— The New South Wales Government are said to have been informed by cablegram from London on Juno 25, that Mr. Thomas Russell and Sir Daniel Cooper had accepted a tender for tho Pacific Mail Service, subjcct to the approval of the Parliaments of New Zealand and New South Wales. We (Sydney Morning Herald) are informed that by cablegram the A.S.N. Co. are advised of the departure of tho City of Mel- ' bourne from San Francisco on the 21st June. | Private London telegrams state that the price of wheat has been reduced within a j limit of 2s per quarter. An address to tho Queen in favour of the j annexation of New Guinea has been adopted by the Queensland Assembly; a paragraph referring to Queensland bearing a portion of ] tho cost of annexation was struck out. | Mauritius advices to the 13th May, state : The market is firm, and the weather is favourable for the plantations. The Hon. Saul Samuel has been elected a director of the Australian Matual Provident Society. At a meeting of M'Ewan's creditors the Colonial Bank made an offer to buy or sell the estate at Gs in the £. Thomas Luke and Co., tea merchants, have called a meeting of their creditors. We have received the following telegram from Mr. H. C. St. Vincent, honorary secretary of the Glen Innea Jockey Club :— '* Telegram re Monster Handicap not correct, the money not been subscribed. But Club contemplate offering £1000 handicap next meeting. There wUI be three days' racing." Mr. Frank Stephen is about to send his lifeboat from Melbourne on a trip to Sydney. Leggatt, an old sailor, and his son will proceed* in her vrith a fortnight's provisions. A preliminary trial will be made to-morrow. It is understood that the Eastern AustraJian Mail Company have offered to run a mail through Torres Straits at 10 knots, making Brisbane the terminus, for £50,000 per annum, which will be, probably, declined. The company is running to Brisbane this trip at the top speed, to prove its capabilities.

The mail going forward from Singapere by Messagcries Maritime Company is expected to be delivered in London a week in advance of contract date. Jim Pong, a Chinaman, has been committed for trial on a charge of having mnrdured on« Rengelman at Bet Bet (Victoria). Contributions have been received from England for the Gothenburg fund, which now reaches £9300. Mr. H. N. Douglas, a very promising young actor, and an old Sydney favorite, left for New Zealand in the Easby (s), under engagement to Mr. Hoskins. Judge Dunno has Bent to tho Victorian Government a lengthy reply to the charge of intoxication while on tho Bench, which he denies. He mya he was taking chlorodoyne, not spirits. The O'Connell centenary, to bo held at Melbourne, is to consist of a banquet, an Irish national concert, and a monster procession of Irish societies. The Victorian Government has promised to adopt legislation to prevent unseaworthy ships from proceeding to sea. Millist, the victim of the gas explosion, is progressing favourably. The accident is believed to Save been caused by the deceased man Smith applying a light to the tank while leaking. In a. rifle match at Adelaide, Germans v. English, the latter won by 136 points. The South Australian Government in making Port Darwin a free port has given satisfaction at Palmerston, but the people think that policy should embrace tho construction of a continental railway, commencing from Port Darwin. I

London telegrams quote that Adelaide wheat is sold at 4Gs Cd per quarter. Private Loudon telegrams report that sugar iu London is improving. Pacific Mail Service.—The Sydney Herald understands that tho Government, with the concurrence of New Zealand, conveyed through Mr. Russell, who is at present in London, have arranged with the A. S. N. Company to continue the present temporary service for fouradditional trips to and from San Francuco on tho eame terms as the present contract, with the exception that the contractors have made concessions to the Government in reference to tho premiums for arrival of bolts in advance of the time named in the table, and have also agreed to provide additional accommodation for the mail agents on board tho steamers. Under this arrangement, the temporary service will end in October.

The debate on the mail service in the NewSouth Wales Assembly was terminated by a count out, to which the Government were contributors, if they were not the promoter* of it, for which they were attacked on the following day by Mr. Parkes, but which Mr. Garratt defended ae perfectly legitimate. Seeing that Mr. Dibbe is a director of the Australian Steam Navigation Company, which is tendering for the new contract, a good many people think he might very wisely have allowed the subject to be handled by others, and in any caao it is regarded as absurd that he should ask the Assembly to commit itetlf to break away from the alliance with New Zealand on the eve of tenders coming la for the service under the joint agreement. In the course of the debate, Mr. Parkes defended the action that his Government took, and especially the alliance with Kew Zealand, as adapted to give on the whole a more efficient aervioe than if we had trusted entirely to our own resources.

A natural curiosity of a peculiar character, I to bo seen on the Maryvalo run, near the Morwell, has been reported to the Oippslarul Times by a gentleman who has lately returned from that locality. Some short distance from the Maryvale homestead is a round waterliole of about 90 yards in diameter, which so tar as has yet bsen ascertained has no bottom, although several attempts have been made by going in the middle a iu boat with all the available line and sounding for several hundred feet. The hole is iu the basin of the surrounding hillocks, and the formation round the Bidea is of an igneous character. A singular fact is the influence the moon has on the water, as at full moon the level is highest, but after that the water slowly ebbs, till at the first quarter of the next it is quite three inches lower, again rising imperceptibly till it attains its maximum height at the next full moon. It has been discovered that the sides of the hole overhang a few degrees, and the water is highly mineralised, tasting, so our informant says, something like the mineral water from Ballan or Hepburn. It certainly appears as if some subterranean communication existed with the ocean ; or can our savans else account for the rise or fall ?We belieyo it is intended to send to Melbourne for a few deep-sea soundings lines with which the bottom may be reached. The general appearan.ee of the locality points to the supposition that the hole has been the crater of an extinct volcano, which must have been of no ordinary magnitude. The railway line passes within a few yards of the waterhole, and should the fluid possess medicinal qualities there is enough to supply the world. DARING ESCAPE FROM BRAIDWOOD GAOL. [FROM TUB BTLUDWOOD " DISPATCH."]

Some time on Saturday night, June 5, or Sunday rooming, June G, a most daring and audacious escape was made from Braidwood Gaol by one of the prisoners confined therein, a young man named Patrick Campbell, or rather a mere lad, he being only 17 years of age. On Sunday morning at the usual hour at which tho prisoners are removed from their cells to the yard, about six or half-pait six o'clock, the cell occupied by the prisoner was found to l>c vacant, a small hole in the brick wall where tho ventilation grate had been placed, shewing how he had made his exit. The warder, as may be well imagined, lost no tioio in apprising tho gaoler of the occurrence, exclaiming, in doing so, that "Campbell had gone." The prisoner, on the day but one previous, had been allowed to go back to bed in his cell, and the gaoler's first impression upon hoaring this exclamation was that he was dead. But ho waa speedily undeceived as to his destination.

The implements by which ho worked his way through the wall were a small carpenter's chisel and a common table knife. These were left, with another knife, which was rusty and bore no signs of having been used. These he left on the floor of th« cell, amongst the bricks and half-bricks which, after getting the grating out, he took from under it. The chisel and table-knife which he used have been identified as belonging to the gaol, and ho mußt have picked them up. and liad them secreted aboat hiß person on the Friday morning when he asked permission to retire to his cell. Consequently ha had: them with him daring his two days' " illness," and thero is no doubt he was not idle during all that time, and did not leave all liia work in making the breach in the wall to the Saturday night when ho got away. He had his bed across the aperture, and could, while lying down, easily hide what ho was at from the eyes of the warders. The ventilation gratis was two bricks deep above the level of the floor, and the escapee had cut away a portion of the bricks underneath, and removed others, until he had made a hole just big enough for his body to pass through. He let himself down outside to the ground by means of his blanket, which he toro in two and knotted together at the ends, one of which he Becnrea by a piece of wooden lining of the cell, which he had removed, and which he made fast by slipping in between the lining and the brickj work of the wall. He left his trousers [ aud jacket and hat in the cell, but took away a suit of gaol clothes which was in the yard. It is supposed ho got upon the wall by one of the insido gateß, which, wo are informed, are all left open at night for tho convenience of the warder making his rounds of inspection. But it is difficult to say whether ho jumped down (for tho wall ia so shaped at the top as to.afford him no hold

to let himself down) or went along it to the tower, from which there is a ladder to the garden outsido the wall, or got round to where tho wall springs from the front of the g»>l, where there is a down-spout which, with the footholds afforded by the stonework, would give him a ready means of descent without risking a broken limb by jumping from a height of 20 feet. However, whichever way he got down, he managed it successfully. Tho night was bitter cold, and one on which the very beasts in tho fields —let alone a human being unsheltered and exposed to the pitiless blast and cold driving winter rain—were to be pitied. The runaway, albeit he is only 17 years of age, has obtained no small experience of criminal life. His larrikin propensities in early youthgothim on board the Vernon, from which, it is reportod, he escaped by swimming ashore.