AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 98, 14 August 1876, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Spurious bank notes are in circulation in Sydney. The Queensland Government intend to propose a Public Works loan of a million. The South Australian Council of Education think of opening evening classes for working men. The Borough Council of Wamambool are having the principal streets planted with t'-ees on both sides, protected with iron guards. A motion has been carried in the South Australian Assembly that it is desirable to establish mail communication between Port Adelaide, Port Darwin, anclßatavia. No fewer than twenty larrikins were brought before the Melbourne Bench in one day. Fines, with the alternative of imprisonment, were inflicted in each case. The Collingwood, Fitzroy, and Richmond Life Protection and Salvage Corps have passed rules for their efficient working at fires, after occupying three nights in moulding them into shape. Between the Ist of January of this year and the 01st July, 1,916 bills of sale were given in Victoria, or an average of between 3,000 and 4,0u0 during the course of the year. The "Age" says that the punishment of the lash has "been found to act as a great deterrent to the perpetration of those disgusting offences which too frequently occupy the attention of the police authorities.

The woollen mill operatives at Ballarat, who were out on strike, have gone back to work, though the new prices have not yet been arranged, and some dissatisfaction is shown by the men at this state of things. The new "Victorian Elections Bill provides with a view to the convenience of working-men, that vote-talcing shall commence °vt eight a.m., instead of nine as hitherto, but the Assembly is not likely to agree to evening elections, as likely to lead to drunkenness.

Jn regard to telegraph cable construction, in reply to a memorandum received from Sir Julius Vogel, the Western Australian Government have issued a memorandum announcing that it is prepared to co-operate cordially in the matter with the Governments of New Zealand and the other Australasian colonies. James Ashe was tried for the Burrumbeet outrage, at Ballarat, on the 24th. The jiuy retired at a quarter to six, and at half-past six returned with a verdict of faulty. " The prisoner said, in reply to the usual question, "I am innocent: lam not the man who committed the offence." He was sentenced to death without any hope of mercy. The Kew Asylum Board of Inquiry have not sent in'their report. The " Age" says that the female attendants who were on their trial, gathering courage from the prolonged silence of the Board, have resumed°their acts of cruelty, and that the practice of half drowning refractory patients by tying their feet and keeping their heads under water while bathing is as prevalent as ever.