INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4224, 3 October 1874, Page 3

INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

VICTORIA. A young man named George Arthur Hill, lately a clerk in the waterworks branch of the Public Works Department, has been tried on a charge of stealing a cash-box from the office, and acquitted. The case put forward against the prisoner was that he went to the office where he was employed about eight o'clock on the night of the 3rd .Time, on the pretence of doing some extra work, and that he took the cash-box away with him in a parcel, being enabled to do so through having surreptitiously obtained the key of the safe in winch it was kept. The defence was, that the parcel which the prisoner was seen to take away did not contain the cash-box, but some old warrants, which he took home with him to sort, and that some one else in the office must have committed the theft. He had not, however, been ordered to take the warrants home, or to go to the office to work after hours,, and he did not do any work while he was in the office. Neither the cash-box nor any of the money were found. The prisoner was tried two months ago on the same charge, and the jury were then unable to agree. The report of the Chief Commissioner of Police on the present condition of the detective force is of such a nature as to arrest public attention. It seems that a process of deterioration has been going on in that force for years past, owing to circumstances which admit of an easy explanation, and which reflect no discredit whatever on the department. In 1859, when the population of the Colony was only 530,000, the number of detective police was forty-two. In 1874, when the population has undergone an increase of fifty per cent., the detective force has been diminished to the extent of twenty-five per cent. It now comprises thirty-two members only. In the interval between the two periods there lias been an increase in that class of crimes which calls the services of such a body most peculiarly into requisition. More snow ha 3 lain on the Buffalo Range in the early part of September, than has been the case for the last twenty years. A new ventilator, on the principle of that employed for the House of Commons, erected at Messrs. Synnot and Co.'s new wool store at a cost of over £SOO, has been tried, and found to work admirably, preventing all effluvia from skins and wool. There were a number of gentlemen interested in wool-buying present when the experiment was tried, and they expressed their satisfaction at the result. Several buckets filled with hemp and wool were lighted on the different floors, and the doors of the ventilator, which resembles a large chimney, being opened, the smoke was immediately cleared.

The new syphon over the Back Creek, in connection with the Coliban water-scheme, has been completed successfully, and the water now flows on to Castlemaine. The pipes of which the new syphon is constructed are three feet in diameter, and were made by Messrs. Fulton and Co., Melbourne. The former syphon was constructed of large iron sections imported for the purposes of the sewerage of the city of Melbourne; and it is a singular fact, that after the failure of that syphon, tho price of iron had so advanced that the old sections were sold for a sum sufficient to pay for the new pipes, and construct the present syphon within some £2OO or £3OO. The railway between Maryborough and Dunolly, thirteen miles in length, will be opened for traffic on the Ist of October. A dastardly attempt to destroy life and property was made near midnight lately by throwing through the window of one of the bedrooms of Mr. Frank Johnston, storekeeper, Smeaton, a quantity of combustible, consisting of a lemonade bottle filled with blasting powder, with & lighted fuse inserted in the neck, and corked. A gin bottle of kerosene was attached. The breaking of the window and the kerosene bottle, when it fell on the floor, drew Mr. Johnston's attention to what had occurred, and he promptly extinguished the lighted fuse. ' The matter is now in the hands of the police. This is the second attempt of a similar kind which has been made on the same person within. the last twelve months.

A serious gas explosion has occurred in the house of the Rev. W. Ballantyne, Presbyterian minister, Carlton. All the family were injured, and Mrs. Ballantyne's life is despaired of. Her son is seriously burnt. The furniture and windows of the house were broken. An escape of gas was smelt, and a candle was taken to find out where the gas was escaping from. The explosion, followed immediately. The latest accounts are that Mrs. Ballantyne's state has improved. A somewhat singular accident occurred today at Meredith. A reporter of the Buninyowj Telegraph was returning on horseback from a ploughing match, when a man came up to him with a led horse. In passing, the horse playfully kicked out and broke the reporter's leg. ■ Sixty men following the occupation of woodsplitters in Walhalla (Gipps Land) have struck work for higher wages, and stopped for the present the supply of firewood. A plucky ride is reported as follows by the Jkndi'jo Advertiser : "On 3rd September a farmer named Robert Yeats, residing at Talamba, a distance of about sixty miles from Runnymede, had his left hand crushed. On the following morning he determined to proceed to the Bendigo Hospital. A distance of sixty miles, however, had to be got over on horseback, a number of selectors' fences on the way adding to the difficulty. He was assisted on to a horse, and with one hand in a sling started off on his journey. The animal, being a spirited one, carried its rider over tho numerous fences on the road without any hesitation until it reached a wiro fence, which it refused to take. As the rider was disabled of the use of one hand ho was loth to allow tho horse to go back, but got over the difficulty by taking oft"" his coat and laying it over the fence, which, making it visible to the horse, caused him to take it in gallant style. He accomplished the distance of sixty miles, and reached the Runnymede railway station after an exciting ride of a little over five hours. Ho subsequently arrived iu Sandhurst by train, and obtained tho necessary medical assistance." . Mr. Carter has resigned his position as Commissioner of Titles, and the Government have a nice piece of patronage at their disposal. When Mr. Carter was first asked to surrender his private practice and administer the titles office, he gave the Government two alternatives, either to give him a salary of £2OOO a year without any claim to a pension, or £ISOO a year with a retiring allowance and the other perquisites of the Civil Service. Mr. Carter lias had the £2OOO, and has just had a year's leave of absence. The body of a man was found in the bush about two miles from Dunolly, near Murderer's Hat, by a drover named McKenzie, hanging by the neck by a rope from the limb of a tree. Eight pounds seventeen shillings wore found on the body. At tho inquest held the medical evidence showed that the deceased could not have committed suicide by strangulation, but

from the number of dreadful contusions on the body it is - suspected a foul murder has taken place. From a German bible and receipt found in the deceased's swag, his name appears to be Louis Schiedemann. A shocking affair has occurred at Sandhurst. Thomas Purchas, an old man, formerly a solicitor, now a woodcutter and miner, had been drinking one night. At about midnight he went to the Tam o'Shanter Hotel, with a man named Middlurg, both being under the influence of drink, and sat down in the parlor. Purchas got up and went into the bar. The landlord's daughter hearing the bottles rattling and thinking the deceased was taking some brandy, went into the bar, and found him with a bottle containing sulphuric acid at his mouth. He was not able to speak, and was vomiting. He died in about twenty minutes. He-had been in the habit of talcing the acid, mixed with water, for the cure of a cold. He was a schoolfellow of Greathead. Kerosene was given him for the purpose of exciting vomiting, but it did no good. An inquest has beeii held, when the jury returned a verdict to the effect that death was the result of an " overdose of sulphuric acid, taken by the deceased unintentionally, he having been used to take it." '■ Steps have been taken to secure that persons sending fowls to Melbourne by rail shall hereafter do so in crates, and not simply tied together ; and the police have been instructed to take proceedings against persons who leave fowls at railway stations without food or water. FINE HAVANNAH CIGARS. A rather singular action, in which a quantity of sheepwash tobacco was involved, has been heard before Judge Cope at the County Court. The plaintiff was Mr. Benjamin Nathan, a cigar manufacturer at C'ollingwood, and the defendant was Mr. Hudson Beauvais, County Court bailiff and general dealer, of Portland. Plaintiff sought to recover £99 damages for the seizure of twenty bajes of East India tobacco by the Custom-house officers for the non-payment of duty. The defendant bought the tobacco in Portland in April last, at auction, for jjd. per lb., it being described as sheepwash tobacco on which 3d. per lb." duty had been paid, and which had been in the Colony about twelve or thirteen years, and had become damaged through being immersed in water. The defendant communicated with a Mend in Melbourne named Philip Lee, telling him of Ills purchase, and stating that he was willing to dispose of it cheaply, and subsequently the tobacco was consigned to Lee per the Rob Roy, at lid. per lb. Lee's statement was that after he received the tobacco he sold it to the plaintiff for 6d. per lb., duty paid, but being at the time in insolvent circumstances, he told the plaintiff he was acting as agent for Beauvais. He made out the sale note as agent, and took the plaintiff down to the Rob Roy, where Nathan paid the price of the tobacco—viz., £44 Bs. 6d.—over to the captain, who forwarded the amount due by Lee to Beauvais. Nathan bought the tobacco as sheepwash which had paid 3d. per lb. duty, but as he subsequently used somes of it in the manufacture of cigars, the Custom-house authorities seized it for not having paid the proper duty on raw tobacco, namely, Is. per lb. The plaintiff said he had lost by the" transaction the money paid to Beauvais, also £lO profit on part which he had sold, together with other prospective profits, and that he had suffered damage to his character and reputation. It was not proved in evidence whether the 3d. per lb. duty had originally been paid, and his Honor gave a verdict for the plaintiff for £54 ISs. 6d. Mr. Quinlan, for the defendant, raised a nonsuit point on the ground that there was no evidence to show that the proper duty had not been paid, and that the plaintiff was liable for his loss, having brought the seizure on himself by making the tobacco into cigars. Mr. who appeared for the. plaintiff, replied that~ the defendant should have brought evidence to show that the duty had been paid. His Honor reserved the point for future argument. THE STATE OP MINING. The last official reports of this industry have their bright side and their dark. The alarming feature they contain is that the decrease in the number of our mining population is not checked, but rather is increasing. Going back as far as 1865, we find over 80,000 miners returned, and now the totalis46,4oo, including 12,600 Chinese. Europeans have sunk to 33,800, and the decline is continuing. At the end of 1873 we had 50,600 miners ; in March this year the number returned was -18,160, and this last three months has witnessed a further falling off of 1700 men. Were that loss to go on for a decade, why, among the rarest fossils Professor McCoy could find on a Victorian , goldfield would be a goldmiuer. Happily, the decrease is almost altogether confined to alluvial miners, who numbered 42,000 Europeans in 1865, and have shrunk to 15,400, while the quartz-reefers, who were 17,300 nine years ago", are 15,500 today. Moreover, the gold return itself is increasing, and stands at 271,8370 z; for this the second quarter of the year, as against 260,0000 z. for the first quarter. The quartz-miners averaged lloz. per man for the quarter, or at the rate of £176 per annum, and hitherto the average earnings of the miner has seldom exceeded £9O per annum. And while the depth of our shafts is steadily increasing, so that we find the Magdala at 1408 feet, the Newington at 1281 feet, the' South Scotchman's 1196 feet, and still sinking, the average yield of quartz is equal to our palmiest period. The conclusion to which these facts and figures point is that the " digger" has had his day, but there is still satisfactory opening for the investment of capital and the employment of labour. Some of our goldfield contemporaries think that the condition of the industry calls for the interference of the Legislature, but what can the Legislature do ? It cannot create new goldfields, nor manufacture nuggets, and it is these that alluvial mining requires to make the industry itself again.— Dally Telegraph. NEW SOUTH WALES. Seventy-five tons of tin were shipped from the Stockton Works, for Sydney, by one steamer. The Egmont, from Noumea, brings advices that Admiral Ribourt's enquiry has resulted in. his deposing the chief officers of the deportation department and they are to be sent back to France ; also the captain of the port of Noumea, M. Gerdolle (receiver of lands), 'three medical officers, and twelve military overseers. Three officials have been relieved from civil duties, and returned to the military employment. Admiral Ribourt, who left Noumea on the 22nd August, for Kandavau, en route for France via San Francisco, failed to catch the last mail at Fiji, and leaves here by the Cyphrenes. The Government has commenced the prosecution of dummies under the Land Act. Emanuel Jonas, a squatter, has been committed for trial at Bombala, for making a false declaration. Cattle have been sold higher than for years past. Mr. Henderson, of the Victorian gig crow, was sufficiently recovered to return to the training quarters to-day. The prospects of tho Victorians have improved, and all the other four members of the crew, are in excellent form. Mr. Henderson, many years manager of the Bank of Australasia, is dead. Fifteen persons were brought before the Water Police, Sydney, lately, charged with the offence of playing at cricket on last Lord's Day. The Bench discharged them with a caution. The summonses were issued under an old statute of Charles 1., which rendered breakers of the Fourth Commandment liable to a fine, with the alternative of imprisonment in the parish stocks. The enactment is practically nullified, seeing that we are not possessed of one of those " village institutions " of which the famous Dr. Riccabocca, of Lord'Lytton, is narrated to have had such unpleasant experiences, after releasing the boy Leonard from their embraces. i The Rev. Father Mounier, of St. Patrick's Church, has died from diphtheria, after only two days' illness. A strange discovery of treasure is reported by the Sltoalhavcn News. Arfe\y days ago, some workmen were removing a portion of Mr. David Berry's premises at Coolangatta, for the purposo of effecting some improvements, "and while in the act of lowering a wall-plate they were somewhat startled

by a shower of loose sovereigns, which came down " furious and fast" for some minutes. The sovereigns, which are all of the old English stamp, when picked up were found to greatly exceed 1000 in number; and it is conjectured that they must, years ago, have been put in their late hiding-place by one or other of the late members of Mr. Berry's family and were probably forgotten. QUEENSLAND. PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. A substantial idea of the rapid growth and progress of Queensland —the youngest of the Australian Colonies —is obtained by the publi-' cation of a portion of the statistics of that Colony for the year of 1873, as compiled from official records in the Registrar-General's office. The entire population of Queensland in 1564 was only 74,036. In the following year the total was swelled to 87,804, or an increase of 18 per cent. The total population on the 31st of last December was 146,690 ; more than onefourth of that of New South Wales at the present date,, and larger than the whole population of New South Wales, when the census for that Colony was taken in 1841. At that time -New South Wales included the whole of Eastern Australia, and its population was 130,856. The increase of the Queensland population during last year was 13,137 ; of which 3470 was derived from the excess of Births over deaths, and 9667 from immigration, or the excess of arrivals over departures, so that Queensland is still gaining by immigration nearly three times as much as by the natural increase of population. The total number of arrivals in the Colony was 15,141; the departures 5474. Of the 9667 persons added to the population of Queensland from other countries, 5963 were males, and 3704 females. The Government received in 1873, over £3OOO as immigration remittances and refunds, and issued 23 5| land orders for 40 acres each, making 9420 acres. The gain by the excess of births over deaths during the year was 3470, the births being 5720 and the deaths 2250. Of the 5720 children born," 2945 were males', and 2775 females; of the deaths 1371 were males, and only 879 females; so that the female part of the population was increased by 1896, while the number of the males received an accession of 1574 only. Of the entire population, one-thirteenth —that is 11,300 —were located on the various goldfields. For political purposes the Colony has been divided into 42 electoral districts, each returning one member to the Legislative Assembly. There are 23,864 registered electors. Municipal action has been extended over an aggregate area of 155,364 acres, .on which 47,450 persons are located, with 9863 dwellings and 6957 registered electors, of whom 3778 voted at the last municipal elections. The receipts of the municipalities amounted, in 1873, to £54,705, and the expenditure to £49,666. Twelve of the seventeen municipalities had a credit balance at the end of the year; the other five were slightly in debt. The net aggregate credit balance was £7030. One important municipality, Drayton, comprising rateable property of the estimated value of £70,000, has been at a standstill during the year, and had no return to show of receipts or expenditure "in conse-' quence of irregularities in the Town Council." The meteorological tables which accompany the vital statistics contain a great amount of exact information. Last year was an unusually rainy one, at Brisbane over sixty-two inches of rain having fallen. In 1871, the amount was under forty-five and a half inches ; and, in 1865, a small fraction over twenty-four inches. The total rainfall of fourteen years was 730 J inches. The annual mean for that period being fifty-two inches. The annual mean number of days of rain was 124. At stations more inland, the quantity of rain and the number of rainy days are much smaller; thus, at Warwick (ninety miles from the coast, at a height of 1520 ft.) the annual mean rainfall has been just under thirty-two inches, with seventythree days' rain; at Rainworth, Springsure (160 miles from the coast, at a height of 1500 ft.). the annual mean has been under twenty-five inches, the days forty-nine. BOAT ACCIDENT AND LOSS OF THREE LIVES. The Coolctovm Herald reports that. on Sunday, August 16, a dreadful boat' accident occurred in the Endeavor River, by which one man and two unfortunate women lost thenlives. A boatman named Bellipiani states that the boat Platypus had a pleasure party on board. He says :—" We started at about 10 o'clock, having on board Marcus Spongia, Frank Seymour, a Malay, myself, Thomas Graham, Percy Charles Fuller, Louis Deinetrious, James Gibbons, another man whose name I don't know, Mrs. Elizabeth Jane Siebold, Louis Charles Siebold, aged seven, and Mrs. Elizabeth Cooper. We left with the intention of going outside. The wind was blowing strong, and as we neared the point it became rough, so much so that the women and men complained, and we turned back, deciding to visit the Eight Mile. About half-way there we found that the tide was ebbing, and the wind became contrary, so turned back, and as the breeze freshened wo had to make tack for tack. The last and fatal tack was made near the landing at St. Patrick's Point, about 100 yards from the beach, and fifty to sixty yards from shallow water, ..where a footing could be got. The cutter was on the starboard tack, standing into the point with a strong S.B. wind, and all sail set, when a strong puffstruck her, and threw her nearly on her beam ends, putting the washboard under water. Marcus was at the helm, and immediately the wind struck her he let go the sheet, and put the helm over, in order to bring her up to the wind but the puff increasing, she filled, and all were thrown into the water. They immediately scrambled up on to the windward side of the cutter, but their weight and the ton and a half of ballast she had on board, caused her to sink immediately in about ten feet of water. The stern went down first, and the women, who were hanging on it, were left in the water. Frank and Marcus, seeing this, made a grasp at them, and tried to fasten them to the rigging which was standing upright, but the tide and wind being too strong, they could not reach the vessel, which was only a few yards off. Frank caught hold of both the women by the hair and attempted to swim with them, and had lie had assistance then he might have saved them. -1 was trying to take my boots off hi the water in order to go to him, and give him assistance, as immediately the boat capsized all the other men, who had their boots off, struck out for the shore, leaving Frank, Marcus, and me to help the women and child. Frank sang out for help, and finding I could not get them off I struck out for him with them on. When I reached him, I found he had hold of one woman and the boy. I took the child from him, and in my excitement I swam to the boat instead of the shore. I was much exhausted, as the tide was so strong, but with great difficulty managed to reach tho masthead, where I spelled. Just as I got to tho mast, I heard Marcus cry, ' Oh, she's gone'!' He seemed nearly gone himself. I did not see Frank at the time, but presently I saw him rise, and from his appearance I perceived he was done too. Both swam to the boat, and I, being a heavier man than • them, gave Frank the child, and told him to hold on to the mast. I then swam ashore. All the other men were looking on from the beach during the whole of the time. The Brigham Young came up just then, and rescued the two men and the boy from the mast, and tho Alabama picked up Thomas Graham, apparently dead, but who a moment before I had seen waving his right hand, but his face was in the water." The bodies of the two women were afterwards recovered. SOUTH AUSTRALIA. Fry Brothers' contract for the Port Wakefield railway has been accepted at £29,000. The increase of imports over exports for the first thirty-five weeks of the year amounted to nearly three-quarters of a million. A report has been received from the Northern Territory, stating that Mr. Newman has sent back eight coolies on account of their health, but the Resident objects to such weeding out. The Lady Alice mine, at Gawlcr, yielded 190ozs. gold from 150 tons of stone. The employes of Johnson, tho bootmaker, are on strike, they alleging that their wages have been reduced by the introduction of new

machinery. Mr. Johnson denies this, and offers the men 455. a week. ' The foundation-stone of the Convalescent Home, at the Semaphore, was laid yesterday. WEST AUSTRALIA. • A proposition by Siemen Brothers to lay a submarine cable along the western or northwestern seaboard lias been favorably entertained by the Government. Inland newspaper postage has again been abolished. The Council has voted £IO,OOO for immigration, £IOOO to be expended in obtaining coolies. NORTH AUSTRALIA. A cutter has arrived at Port Darwin belonging to an English pearling expedition on the_ coast, their fleet consisting of two large vessels and five smaller ones. They intend remaining three years, and have employed 200 as divers.