MELBOURNE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4629, 16 December 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

MELBOURNE.

(from our own correspondent.)

We are now near the end of the Parliamen tary session, that is, if the session ends as it usually does, and before Christmas. Last session certainly was extended over Cliristmas, but the circumstances were highly exceptional, and there is no desire on any side to treat the case as a precedent. If, however, the session this year ends before Christmas, there are very few more working days before its termination, And it is correct to say that the most important business has yet to be done. It is only a week or two ago that the Government stated its railway policy, which involves three measures of very great importance. One ia the purchase of the Hobson's Bay Railway, for some L 1,300,000 or 11,500.000, another a Railway Construction Bill, providing for the construction of some 300 miles of new railways, and the third is a Railway Management Bill, intended to place the whole of the State railwayo on a new footing. The Government decided first to take the senße of Parliament on the question of the purchase of the Hobson's Bay line, this being indeed the key to the whole scheme. If this part of the plan fails, the_ whole will have to be reconstructed. But on this, at the outset, the Ministry encounters a good deal of opposition. Some of this comes from a belief that the price asked by the company is beyond the value of the line. And some of it comes from the tactics of the Opposition, who can never let pass an opportunity of inflicting a check on the Government, irrespective altogether of the merits of the question. At any rate, the result is, tnat the proposal has fallen through. It. is possible that this factiius and partisan conduct of the Opposition may be attended by its own peculiar Nemesis. It has been the complaint of the Opposition all through the session that the Government wan intentionally keeping back the Railway Goujtruotion Bill an a. means of influencing th«

•'flistricts desirous of obtaining .railway extonsibn. - To.Jseepnthjs JBil|, ! tback : p,^,tb r^snd of, the session,,ana,soT7-as wj^Jhayp 3 generar election closest hand^to/^o.to the' cpsitry with aißailway Construction Bill.intheir.;p6bkebS" ' ttfonld be- on the same'theQiy;'theutiii6sb'stretch '■■'■ bt,\wblied;rTi^^jildiis:, 1 /%1i168|.1>fIyliich'fMinisters could be guilty.' But^^^ecburse.' they have adopted*- ->the, Qppoa^ioji'.,virtually, kedessitate the'Governnient.to takeatuisjstep,", ahd'Sp'Svitb:'ihuchi'trohble whittle w irod for tneir J.'o'#,ii bacil<s. :i''lF, by' offering gross obstruct! veness'to the railway policy of the GoI vernmenfi, they defeat all'chance of its being I carried, they leave to the Government little option but to close the session, and take the voice of the country on the points in dispute, and then send them to the constituencies'with their pockets stuffed full of railways. : : The tone of our Parliamentary proceedings Scarcely improves. It does not indeed display the brutal ruffianism of the " stonewall" doings which rendered last session so notorious, but the old spirit is there, and is always breaking out. A favourite device of the Opposition is to use some member of shameless audacity and reckless rowdyism as a mere machine for scattering foul slanders upon their opponents. Last year this unenviable office was filled by Mr M'Kean—a man of gigantic stature, wonderfully truculent aspect, and very feeble brains, who was an apt tool for the dirty work of the leaders of the Opposition. This sessicta, since the expulsion of. M'Kean for recklesss Calumnies,, they use' a young man named iGaunson, who was sent to Parliament by the folly of the electors of Ararat, and who. has displayed a degree of chattering imbecility and slanderous disposition that admirably fit him for the foul duties that used to be discharged.! con amove by M'Kean. If politics in Parliament, owing: to the unscrupulous practices of the Opposition, show this larrikin tendency, politics outside are pretty well as bad. During the last week, or two the Colony has been visited by Mr Henry Tayior, the well-known, representative of the Labourers' Union in England, and friend and colleague of Joseph Arch, the agitator on behalf of the agricultural labourer. Mr Taylor came on behalf of the Union to South Australia to examine the suitability of that Colony as a field for emigration. After completing his business there, he came on to Melbourne, and while here, thought that he. itisjht do a g6od service to the working classes, of whom he is their epresentative, by delivering speeches, Eointing out the injury done, to their interests y the policy of Protection. As Mr Taylor is a good, poitited, clever speaker, with a happy knack of putting himself in perfect rapport with his audience, and a capacity of addressing his arguments and illustrations in the most, effective form to working men, he delivered one '■ or two very able and telling speeches, and was j in every way the man best fitted to influence I the convictions of his class. This fact was; soon seen clearly by the Protectionist leaders,' who • thereupon took means to prevent Mr Taylor from being heard. Gangs of rowdies—j the outside loafers^ and hangers-on of politics —were sent to his meetings, to create; interruptions and disturbances, and to) prevent his words from reaching their] audience. After Taylor was silenced, aud the quiet respectable part of the audience driven1 away,|the roughs thereupon moved resolution,! that, having "heard" Mr Taylor's arguments, they are more than ever convinced of the wisdom of jvotection. These resolutions were avowedly prepared beforehand, but it was not thought any objection to them that they thus bore a lie on their face. It was evident that the Protectionists were too much afraid of the effect of Mr Taylor's forcible homely rhetoric and logic to allow it a fair field, and this is the mode they adopted to smother it. From all thin, it is apparent that the same tactics are pursued by this party in and out of Parliament. At Free Trade meetings they_ put forward their roughs and ruffians, and in Parlia-' ment they have their Gaunsohs, Lalora, and W. C. Smith?.

The loss of the Otago was heard in Melbourne with great regret, and much sympathy was given to the firm of M'Meckan, Blackwood, and Co. on account of the disaster. The firm has met with many serials 'losses from shipwreck during the last few years, quite a heavy series of disasters.

A rather curious trial for murder has just taken place. One Basilio Bondietto, a Swiss, was accused of murdering a fellow-countryman named Carlo Comisto, with whom he worked as mate. The peculiarity of the case is that there was no direct evidence that the prisoner committed the murder, or even that a murder had been committed. But Comisto suddenly disappeared, the prisoner could give no satisfactory account of his absence, he took possession of the missing man's property, and tried to burn in a charcoal kiln a quantity of bones which medical witnesses declared to be human; The jury found the prisoner guilty on this circumstantial evidence, arid he is to be hanged on Monday next. There has also been a murder accompanied with suicide, at Emerald" Hill, where a woman named Elizabeth Carrington, aged 52 years, was murdered by her husband, William Carrington, aged 55 years, a hawker. He seems to have been actuated by some unintelligible feeling of jealousy, and first cut her throat and then his own. She was nursing'a child at the time—an infant which she was engaged to nuwe—and when found the' poor child was covered with blood and apparently terribly mangled, but' in reality quite unhurt. Then we have news from Ararat of a ballast train conveying a large number of navvies being thrown off the rails by a horse getting in tho way of the engine, and a large number of the men were iujuved, and three killed.

A very strange affair has taken place in a country town named Creswick, which has for Borne days been the scene of unwonted excitement. The whole of the causes of this extraordinary disturbance of the usual good order are not stated, and can only be inferred from the known facts. These are that the local postmaster, apparently a respectable man, named Thwaites, had reason as he believed to reprove his daughter for irregular conduct, and did so as it seems in a very forcible way. She, cither from her own impulse or from the advice of some one else, laid a complaint against him, and took steps towards having him bound over to keep the peace. At the same time her brother went to the house of Mr Dowling, the local Police Magistrate, and broke the windows, and accused Dowling of improper conduct with his sister. The. inhabitants of the town, it seems, sympathised with the young man, and burned Bowling in effigy, and ached towards him in such a wav that a strong force of police, with loaded carbines and with ten rounds of ball cartridges, was sent to guard his house. The Government sent another police magistrate to hear the case against Thwaites, who, however, did not appear, and| it was stated,; came to Melbourne to report his version of the affair to the Government. Mr Dowling is, the papers say, to be removed to another district. Young Thwaites was charged before the Police Court the other day with breaking Mr Dowling's windows, but the charge was laid under a wrong clause) and the case was dismissed, to the immense delight of the audience in Court. A subscription was immediately started to defray, the cost to which the two Thwaiteses, father and son, had been put, and LIOO was collected in a very short time. :

Another country town is at the present time happy in the possos3ior. of a local excitement. It is, however, one of a different character from the Thwaites-Citm-Dowling business. I allude to the caso of the Rev. Mr Ewing1, of Beechworth, whom the General Assembly-.of the Presbyterian Church the other day resolved not to recognise as a minister of the Church. The congregation and the inhabitants of the town are holding meetings, denouncing the action of the Assembly as harsh and unjust,declaring that theywilj still, in spite :of. the Assembly, retain Mr Ewing as their minißter, and getting up subscriptions to present him with a suitable testimonial. However, it seems that if the congregation choose to rebel against the decision of the Assembly they will have to" leave their church property, which iB vested in that body. It is very unlikely that their sympathy with Mr Ewing will prove to be enduring enough to induce them for his sake to secede from the Presbyterian Church and leave their property behind them. But at present they talk in a very high strain, Mr Ewing is to preach in tbe church in spite of the Assembly, and the building is to be held, if possible, afjainst all comers. :

A movement that is being made in one department of the Government on behalf of female employment may be referred to. Some years ago, with the object of opening up env ployment for women as telegraph operators, the Government established classes to give instruction in telegraphy to women. The classes were crowded, and many have continued to study up to the present time. But there is really no encouragement for women to qualify themselves for this employment, as the number of situations to which they could be appointed is very numerous, and the number of qualified candidates is now immense. Now the Post-master-General has determined to introduce female letter-sorters at the Post Office. The wages to be earned is very low, but this fact has not hindered a very large number from sending in applications for appsintment to the new posts. The matter is an experimental one, and we have to see how it will work.

With the approach of the Christmas season the Christmas publications make their appearance. Our old friend Punch's Almanac is as witty and artistic as usual, and gives an amazing amount of funny engravings and letterpress for sixpence. Then Mr Bruntdn Stephens,' of Queensland, the well - known "poet, has, through Mr Mullen, issued a delightful Australian novelette, which is likely to nieet with a very extensive sale.

At the theatres the only novelty is the appearance of Signor Majeroni in the play of "The Old Corporal" Though the play is but a melodrama, it sufficed to afford Signor Majeroni opportunity of displaying the great qualities as an actor which he showed under more favourable circumstances in regular highclass dramas, and in his own Italian tongue, when acting as leading gentleman in the company of jladsiae Eietori. More recently SSjgnora Majeroni has appeared with her hus-

bind in " Camiire^an3| Ja£ipn>^elt applause hi the^atih,o?.^d,Sß^p^f3er :f actm^ > _