AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 116, 5 July 1873, Page 17

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Some prospectors in the Northern Territory are asking £4OOO cash for their interest in claims there. In the election of a school board for Scarsdale, Victoria, a number of ladies exercised their right to the franchise. Two tons of quarts from the Princess Louise mine, Northern Territory, shipped per Gothenburg, has been insured at the declared value of £3OOO.

The “ Hay Standard” reports that Mr Bayley, of Mudgee, has sold one of the very best of his rams for £315, and another for £l5O 10s, to a Riverine settler.

The “ Ballarat Courier” says;— “ There has been a frightful increase lately in the number of lunacy cases which have been received at the city lock-up, en route for the Yarra Bend—no fewer than ten during the past week.” There is at present living in Sydney

a person .aged 74, who is the of a family of five the remainder being in England. The embed ages amount to 401 years, and all of them are active in body and mind. A Sydney paper contains the announcement of the exhibition of a “ wonderful baby,” and truly it does seem to be a wonderful creature, for it is said to be only eight months old, aud yet it measures as follow's :—Height, 2ft llin ; round the chest, *2ft Sin; round the waist, 2ft lin ; round the thigh, Ift Gin.

The “ Ballarat Courier” writes : Wednesday being the day on which out-door relief is weekly given to persons outside the walls of the Ballarat Benevolent Asylum, the master, Mr Boughen, was kept hard at the work of distribution from seven in the morning till nearly five in the evening. Within the hours mentioned, 440 loaves of bread were distributed, 60 sheep, 9 sacks Hour, li bag sugar, and 91 bs tea.

Several cases of infanticide have occurred recently in-Sydney, and one, tit least possesses features of extreme atrocity. Two young ladies strolling in their garden had their attention arrested by the proceedings of a dog, swimming in a water-hole. The animal dragged out a paper parcel, which,, on investigation, proved t<> contain a a dead baby, strangled with a piece of twine.