Intercolonial News.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 235, 11 March 1876, Page 18

Intercolonial News.

Mr. Vardy, a Sydney solicitor, gives the following explanation,” states the Echo, “in connection with his filed schedule. ‘ My insolvency arises from falling off and in jury, to my practice as a solicitor, caused, I verily believe, by a series of libels and slanders published and uttered by certain newspaper proprietors, magistrates, attorneys attending at the Sydney police courts, police constables, and others.’ ” A revolting incident is thus described m the Melbourne Argus of the 23rd February : About three weeks since a man named Cole was found floating in the Saltwater Fiver, and after the inquest had been held the body, it is stated, was placed in a coffin much too small for it, and men had to stand upon the lid to close it, while iron hoops were placed around the coffin to keep the lid together. The evidence of those present at the tune was taken, and it is expected that the matter will be placed before the Chief Secretary.” The standing order now known to the world as the “ iron hand ” was used for the first time in the Victorian Parliament by a member of the Opposition. During the consideration of the Supply Bill there was a disposition shown to get up a discussion, when Mr. A. T. Clark moved “ that the motion be now put.” This was done to the exclusion of any further debate, and the Government measure was passed quicker than it otherwise would have been. It is curious that the minority should first use an order to the passing of which they had given such strenuous opposition. There appears to be a great demand for labor in New South Wales, according to the Sydney Morning Herald of February 19 : “ The Earl of Dalhousie, an immigrant vessel, arrived at Sydney during the course of the week. She brought out 321 immigrants, which were classified as 58 single women, 39 married couples, 105 single men, and 86 children. The immigrants have not been in port a week yet, and with the exception of a few, they have all either obtained employment

or have been sent for by their friends. Our public and private works are nearly at a standstill for want of labor, and it has been stated upon undeniable authority that 10,000 men could find ready employment on our railways alone. There is work for all, and workmen are getting higher wages in. New South Wales than they can obtain in Euglaud. Navvies are particularly in request, and so much are they wanted that the Government have had to extend the contract time for some of our railway contractors. The Government purpose spending something like £2,000,000 in constructing public works—public works that they would commence immediately if they could get men to construct them.” From a private letter from Bombay, dated December 9, the Hobarton Mercury takes the following extract : Isabella Caraudini have been removed by Hymen from the stage —not of life, but of the concert-room. The youngest made a rapid conquest of young Mr. Adams, an engineer in the Public Works department ; and the elder of Captain Morland, the Transport Agent and Assistant Superintendent of Marine, who is about to marry her. Mr. Adams married right off—a ten days’ campaign.” The Hobarton Mercury states that at Bellerive, on the 15th of last month, two children, evidently under the age of twelve years, were brought in a cart to the jetty, to be taken to Hobarton in the steamer. Their hands were tied together (handcuffs sufficiently small for their wrists not being available, we presume), and they were seated on the quarried stones on the wharf. In this ignominious and cruel position, dressed in brown holland pinafores, and looking the picture of misery, they became a spectacle for the children of the neighborhood to gaze upon, and as much objects of horror as if they were a pair of criminals of the deepest dye, and were on the road to the gallows. Upon inquiry it transpired that they were being escorted. to Hobarton Gaol by one of the Sorell police, and that they had received a sentence for eating apples without the consent of the owner ! The hands of the children were kept tied while crossing over in the steamer —-a breach of the regulations for which the constable ought to be severely punished. Ten years ago the schooner Emma left Port Walcott for Fremantle, with a large number of passengers on board, and has not since been heard of. The Perth Inquirer relates a narrative told by an intelligent native which may throw some light on the loss of the vessel. On a voyage from Port "Walcott to Fremantle recently the native referred to related the following circumstances to the master, Mr. G. Tuckey: —Along time ago (about 10 years, he described) a ship was wrecked near North-west Cape ; the passengers landed, at night, in the boats, and as they had no means of defending themselves the natives had no difficulty in making them prisoners. There was a large number of persons, and amongst them were some females. The natives were not “ sulky ” with them, but nevertheless they killed and ate all of them, the narrator partaking of some of the flesh. Two other vessels wei’e also stated by the natives to have been lost about the same spot — a large vessel and a smaller one—and he was able to point out where the wrecks lay. The crew of the larger vessel took to their boats and proceeded southward, and were probably the ship’s company of a whaler who were rescued at Shark’s Bay by the schooner Favourite about the year 1856. The smaller vessel was probably The Brothers, which was lost about the same time as the Emma, but no account is given of the fate of her crew. To ascertain if possible whether the wrecks really existed, Mr. Tuckey took his vessel inshore as far as he considered prudent after rounding the cape, and by the aid of a telescope made out distinctly the ribs of a vessel lying on the beach. The place is situated about 100 miles to the south of the cape, between Point Cloates and Cape Cuvier, where a reef of 15 to 20 miles in length, and generally undefined on the charts, runs out seaward.

Our telegraphic intelligence recently reported the explosion of a kerosine lamp at Bathurst, by which two ladies and a child were seriously injured, and subsequently one of the adults (Mrs. Nagle) died. The Sydney Evening Neuvs gives the following particulars of the catastrophe :—“ Mrs. Nagle, whose husband is absent from Bathurst, was lighting a kerosine lamp, when, from some unexplained cause, the lamp burst, and set fire to her clothes. Mrs. Reardon, her mother, who was engaged at the time in undressing one of Mrs. Nagle’s children, a fine boy about four years of age, ran to her daughter’s assistance, and the partlystripped child followed. In an instant, Mrs. Reardon and the little fellow were enveloped in flames, and the whole three rushed out of the house into the street—the scene being described as heartrending in the extreme. For some time those who had been collected by the screams of the unfortunate women appear to have been panic-stricken, and before available aid had been brought to bear on the sufferers, their bodies were more or less charred, and presented a spectacle awful to behold. Mrs. Nagle is most terribly injured, the entire front of her body being charred, and her condition is very bad. Her mother, Mrs. Reardon, is also fearfully injured, her right arm and hand especially, the finger-nails being entirely burnt off. The poor little boy is in all but a hopeless condition. The sad affair has caused the greatest sympathy throughout the city, and will, doubtless, throughout the district, for the family is known and respected far and wide.”

We take the following extract from an Australian contemporary : —“Fired by the persistency of New South Wales and New Zealand in maintaining the Pacific service in spite of its initiatory troubles, and also, perhaps, by the triumph of such steamers as the St. Osyth and Whampoa by way of the Cape, the P. and O. Co. have at last begun to consider a scheme which it is hoped will revive its

ancient prestige. It contemplates a severance of the Australian and Indian services, the former having direct communication with Aden. By the employment of large steamers, with adequate steam power, the passage time between London and Adelaide will be calculated at 36 days, Melbourne 38, and Sydney 40, with three days additional for a New Zealand extension to Wellington. An important feature in connection with the scheme is that the exclusive mail character of the service will give place to a combined mail and passenger service, the rate being so reduced as to attract all classes of passengers. While the P. and O. Company are thus proposing to shorten their route so as to drive the Californian service out of the field, the Pacific Mail Company have incepted an ambitious scheme that, practically carried out, would give these colonies regular direct communication with Amei’ica, Japan, and China. Their proposal is to employ first-class steamers that will start to Sydney, thence to Fiji, Honolulu, and San Francisco ; thence to Japan and China, a steamer leaving Hongkong by the same route to Australia. There are, no doubt, many advantages in such a scheme, but it must necessarily be a costly one, and as the aid of the American Government is being sought to bring it to fruition, there, is just a possibility that it, like other Pacific mail schemes intended to be carried out by similar aid, will never get further than the drospectus that announces it.” THE DEATH OF A CHILD FROM WINE. Dr. Bone writes as follows to the M. A. Mail (Victoria) respecting the death of a boy named Abe, son of the Rev. Mr. Abe, atone time curate of Christ Church, Castlemaine,. and now of Borneo, from drinking colonial wine. Dr. Bone says :—“ On the morning of Tuesday last the Rev. Mr. Frank called upon me at S a.m., and stated that on the previous day one of Mr. Abe’s children, aged 5 years, had got into the wine-room and helped himself to the wine from a cask, and became intoxicated. That when brought to the house he had confessed to taking two cupfulls, but that he had probably taken much more. A coffee emetic (?) had been given and the child put to bed, but he had gradually become worse and insensible. That Mr. and Mrs. Frank left him at midnight insensible and convulsed, and went to bed, and did not see him until / o’clock in the morning ; that his little brother, who had been put to sleep with him, had stated that he was groaning and convulsed all night, but he- did not like to rouse Mr. and Mrs. Frank. When Mr. and Mrs. Frank found him still insensible, Mr. Frank came to ask my advice, and having received such advice and medicine, with an injunction to return within an hour unless consciousness had been restored, Mr. Frank returned home. At eleven o’clock, not having received any message, and feeling uneasy about the child, I drove out and found that Mrs. Frank was out at the other farm, but she came in directly ; and Mr. Frank was also out on the other farm, and did not come in for a quarter of an hour ; the child was lying upon his bed, and only watched by his brother, who had been directed to keep a wet cloth upon his head. The unfortunate child presented all the appearance of a drunken person, and was in frightful epileptic convulsions, in which condition his brother informed me he had been all night. The child was lying amongst filthy blankets, and was in a most dirty condition, vermin being plainly visible in their peregrinations about his body. I advised Mr. Frank, when he subsequently came in, that the child was in a moribund condition. I tried to abstract blood from the arm, but the child was too far gone. When I returned with Archdeacon Crawford he was just dead. On the following day, before the inquest, I found that not the slightest care had been taken to protect the corpse, which was in a most horrible state from * fly blows.’ The post mortem examination showed the cause of death to have been alcoholic poisoning, and also something else—namely, that in the whole of the child’s alimentary canal there was not one particle of solid food, nothing but half-digested milk and farinaceous food. The brothers afterwards informed me that they ‘ very seldom had meat.’ One brother stated * not for three weeks.’ Mr. Frank admitted this at the inquest. The only water available for drinking purposes at the house was that obtained from a stagnant hole in the creek, to which cattle and pigs had free access, and which my groom and some of the jurymen found to be quite undrinkable. Is there then much wonder that the poor little thirsty pseudo-orphan should avail himself of the wine to which he had access ? The boy’s room, bedding, floor, clothing, &c., were all found in the most filthy condition, but when I adduced all these facts to the coroner as important, bearing on the neglect shown to the child and his brothers —and also that if the child had been seen immediately after his debauch and his stomach pumped he would have been saved —the coroner, coolly, classically (suo more) and impudently asked, ‘ Oui hono ? This is not the first time that the coroner has repressed facts offered by me at inquests, and I respectfully submic that the attention of the Crown law officers should be at once directed to this matter. Having ascertained that Mr. Frank received remuneration for these four children at the rate of one hundred and eighty (£180) pounds, &e., &c., per annum for maintenance and clothing, and also that Mr. Frank has recently been availing himself of the State schools for education, and of cast-off clothing for their habiliments, and regarding carefully the administration of a confessedly scanty dietetic regimen, I think the coroner was bound to receive all evidence bearing on such matters ; and the justice of the case demanded the very closest scrutiny into all the circumstances attendant upon such baby-farming. As surgeon to the boarding-out scheme in this district, I can at any time bring forward half a dozen or more families of young children, who even upon the somewhat scanty Government allowances, present all the appearances

of robust health, perfect cleanliness, happiness, and moral and religious culture. My excuse for obtruding upon your space at this length is obvious, and it will also be apparent to your readers that when a coroner’s inquest is a. matter of necessity, as in this case (not so much to ascertain the immediate cause of death as what led to that causation), all the facts should he unhesitatingly and impartially recorded in evidence by the coroner. Any man holding such office, and declining to do so, is manifestly unfit, to fulfil the duties of his position.” RAILWAY TRAVELLING EXTRAORDINARY. (From the Geelong Advertiser.) Our worthy ex-mayor is at present on a. visit to Tasmania. In one of his letters he gives the following very amusing account of his railway experience in the “ Tight Little Island” :—“We went to Hobarton on Thursday week by the train, and certainly found the mode of management original. The carriages and engine having to turn sharp curves are made, the first to travel on two sets of wheels called the bogie principle, whilst the latter have the doors at each end, not fastened. They are connected together with a pin, which allows them to move to the right or left easily. Without mentioning the particulars of our down journey other than to say that the rails being very light and placed on smallsleepers without the necessary weight to keep them down, floated on the water when the flood came, and were in many places clear of the permanent way, in others the soil had been washed from under the sleepers. About seventeen miles had been damaged, so we had to do this by coach. After waiting some time four horses were brought, knocked up, havingjust come a journey of 27 miles. We started with a very heavy load, and it was not long' before the pace was reduced to a walk. The coachman asked me if I could drive. I answered in the affirmative, at once arranged the reins in the most scientific manner possible, and there I sat in my glory whilst the coachman got down and ran or walked alongside the horses, which, by means of a tickle now and. again with the whip, he succeeded in making go at the rate of fully four miles an hour. Anyone meeting us must have thought we were a comical turn-out myself driving, a priest on the box next me holding an umbrella over my head, the coachman running by the side cracking his whip, and some of the passengers also stretching their legs alongside of him. However, we got safely to Hobarton, and now for the return journey. The line, I may mention, is on the narrow gauge, 3ft. 6in. wide. The carriages have no springs similar to those used on the Victorian lines, but rest on spiral wire springs, and these, when travelling fast, nearly shake the inside from you. During the latter part of the journey I was glad to stand, as when we were travelling at the rate of forty miles an hour, to make up for lost time, the motion was almost unbearable. The hour at which it was announced the train would start was 8.30 sharp, but at that hour everything apparently had to be got ready. The water was carried in three four-hundred, gallon tanks lashed on a truck, coals on a truck behind. However, we got off at last at about nine o clock, and progressed steadily for about an hour and a half, when the train came to a full stop. "We all jumped out to see what was up, and we found the draft of the boiler was so strong that the small pieces of coal had been drawn through the tubes so as to choke the three or four bottom rows ; the back pan had to be opened and cleaned out, then steam was again raised, and away we went. After some time we stopped at a station to drop some freight, which occupied some time, as it consisted of two bags of sugar. Away we went again, and were suddenly brought to a dead stop. On looking out I saw some of the passengers collecting wood to assist in livening the fire, so I ran back, and shouted ‘ All hands forward to collect wood,’ and amid general laughter we all lent a hand. Once more we started on our journey round curves so sharp that the train, with the engine at one end and a guard’s van at the other, nearly described a half-circle. Suddenly another stop was made at Jerusalem. Having got to this remarkable locality, we all jumped out to amuse ourselves while the freight for the thriving place was deposited on the sand. Some of the passengers played at duck stone ; others threw up one stone and tried to hit it with another ; a priest amused himself playing with his dog. I saw the goods unloaded; they consisted of two or three bags of sugar, some packages of canvas and a case, the whole being saturated with boiled oil. It appeared they had placed a kerosene tin of boiled oil on the top of the goods, and had succeeded in piercing the tin by carelessly placing some scythes against it. After a great deal of time had been lost in discussing this accident, and who was to remove a box covered with boiled oil from the van, the hands generally objecting to touch it, we made another start, and in about an hour pulled up over a creek, at which we were to take in water by bucketing it up. After some discussion about a rope, during which some of the passengers suggested that we should tie our pocket handkerchiefs together, they set to work. The chief engineer, with the rope, dropped a bucket into the stream, hauled it up, handed it to the man who took the tickets, and who transferred it to the second engineer, and the latter emptied it into the 400-gallon tank. Meanwhile, a garden being near, a number of passengers, accompanied by the third engineer, rushed and helped themselves to fruit. After some time the ticket collector, finding the bucketing rather hard work, sang out for the third engineer to assist. The latter thereupon was seen rushing up with both hands filled with fruit, and took the place of the first engineer, being cautioned not to break the bucket, as that was the only one they had. The watering was completed in about half an hour. We made another start, and an hour afterwards pulled up at a large tank, at which I supposed a

sufficient supply of water would be taken in in about ten minutes. Not so, however. When they tried the hose, which was new, they found it impossible to get either end on, so had to use a "V-shaped piece of wood to support it near the aperture in the tank, and the poor fellow who held this got well soused with water. However, all’s well that ends well. We arrived in Launceston at 8.30 p.m., and I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Hobarton. [lt is but fair to state that the line is not finished, and that the contractors are running trains merely to suit the convenience of farmers who, at this busy season of the year, wish to take advantage of so much of the railway as is completed.—Ed. N.Z.M.J