INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 7844, 13 January 1887, Page 6

INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

A STRANGE DEATH. Mb. Habvky M. Moukay Pbiob, barrister and Master of Titles, who started from Ipswich, Queensland, for Maroon station, on the Upper Logan, intending to spend New Year's Day with his father and family, was fonnd by a stockman sitting at Bank Creek, Hooper's crossing, Coochin Cooohin station. On being questioned he could only utter a few inarticulate words, and only lived one hour after being found. The horse was found grazing in the bush, with saddle lying at the crossing, and the girths broken. There were no marks on Prior's body to indicate a fall, and it is supposed that he died from heart disease or apoplexy. A FATAL MISTAKE. A distressing fatality occurred at the Glebe on January 3. At about 10 p.m. a young girl named Ellen Meeley expired at the residence of her parents, No. 1, (Jatherinegtreet, from the effects of poison supposed to have been accidentally imbibed. From the information to hand it would appear that tho deceased complained of feeling unwell in the afternoon, and that her mother directed her to take a dose of fluid magnesia, a bottle of which was kept in tho house. Owing to an unfortunate similarity in the appearance of two bottles, the girl by mistake drank portion of a compound used for cleaning electroplate: ware, which proved to be of a highly poisonous nature. Four medical men—DrsSmttb, West, Service, and McCormack—■ attended the ill-fated girl, and used every means in their power to counteract the effects of the poison, but without avail, and their patient died at the hour mentioned, VICTORIAN DEFENCES. A good deal of activity (states the Melbourne Age) is taking place in the Victorian Defence Department at present. Soundings are being taken in preparation for the erection of a fort on Pope's Eye, off Queenscliff, between the west and south channels, and commanding each channel and the entrance to Port Phillip Bay. The proposed fort is one which has been suggested for the last 25 years. The coat of tho undertaking will probably be about £200,000. Tenders are called for the erection ot a battery at Warrnamboo), a work the construction of which has been urged by the inhabitants for the last two or three years, Batteries are also to be ereoted shortly at Belfast and Portland. The men intended to man the batteries at the placeo named are all enrolled and drilled. The members of the Naval Brigade are now undergoing three week'e continuous drill in batches of 50 each, with the view of rendering that body aa efficient ae the Permanent Force,