AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1063, 13 April 1872, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

A swimming club has been formed in Melbourne. ,

Mr Vogel had a special train to take liim to Ballarat.

There are 300 children in the Industrial Schools in Geelong.' The Victorian Parliamentary session will begin on the 30th inst.

The use of artificial teeth is reported to be on the increase in Victoria.

The manufacture of fine broadcloths has been commenced in Victoria.

, The personalty of the late Judge Macoboy was sworn under £3000. Fine specimens of tin ; ore have been found on one of the islands in Bass Strait.

It is found in Victoria that the hawks chase and kill even full-grown hares. A station in the Monaro district, N.S.W., has been sold at 15s a head for sheep. The cost of erection of the Victorian Mint, which is now completed, was £70,000.

The mining fever :in Sydney is abating 1 a little, as calls are beginning to be made. .'• The rent, paid by Mr Coppin for the Theatre Royal, Melbourne, was £S0 a week.

.During the last- five months a single firm at Geelong has , exported 276,1571b5. of butter.

The competition . amongst the Newcastle colliers lias caused further concessions to buyers. .

For forcibly ejecting a tenant, a wealthy Bourke street butcher in Melbourne had to day £400.

According to Mr Vale, the two finest public buildings in Victoria are lunatic asylums. Packs of wild dogs chase travellers in the Western District of Victoria, after the manner of wolves.

A marriage is about to take place at Ballarat between a bridegroom aged 14 and a bride aged 13.

The personalty of the late Mr David Ogilvy, solicitor, Melbourne, lias been sworn under- £34, 000. Horse-racing in Victoria, according to the Age, " has grown shady, and in some I respects disreputable."

The value of the cotton crop in Queensland last year was £100,000. This year it is expected to be still greater. The deficiency in the yield of wheat in South Australia this year, owing to rust, is estimated at 60,000 tons.

198 German immigrants arrived at Hobart Town, from Hamburg, on March 25th. Eleven had died on the voyage. 4670z5. of gold, have been obtained from three bucketsful of stone from the Golden Bar reef, Rosewood, Queensland.

In some districts of New South Wales, the pastures are so p.oor that the horses, from sheer starvation, can hardly walk.

The Parramatta river murderers narrowly escaped being lynched in Sydney while being taken back to gaol from the Court. Some spurious silver coin is in circulation at Castlemaine. The coiners and utterers are Chinese, one of whom has been caught.

The Ballarat Meat Preserviag Co. have contracted with the Admiralty to supply 64,000 lbs. of preserved meat at 7d per lb.

The official report of the New Guinea Expedition disaster attributes the wreck of the Maria to the captain's ignorance of navigation. The Melbourne Telegraph is about to be considerably enlarged. The prospectus of the Victorian Co-opera-tive Association has been issued in Melbourne. The capital is fixed at £10,000, in £1 shares. A German, named Koch, having made £100,000 by speculation at Sandhurst, has taken himself and his money off to the Fatherland.

Official statistics, just published, show that during the month of January the temperature in Victoria ranged from 141 deg. down to 46 deg. A movement has been started amongst several of the most influential' squatters in South Australia to establish a bushman's circulating library.

Property is suffering so much from being undermined at Ballarat, that the property holders of the place have combined to form an association ior protection. At Wyndham 100 persons have been poisoned by eating bread made of flour which had been conveyed by rail in close proximity to a quantity of sheepwash. Some i of ; the 'blacks have been taking the wire of the Overland . Telegraph to make fish-hooks and spear-heads, while they use the insulators as whet-stones.

The Government o£ Queensland offer £1000 reward for the discovery of a diamond field or drift, the existence of which, it is considered, there are reasons for believing. 'At Chewton, Victoria, the Chinese haye been in the habit of sweeping the dust off the road for the sake of the gold it contains. As the practice injured the roads, it has been forbidden.

The average wholesale price of wine in the Geelong' ■ district during the past year is stated to have been only 10d per gallon. Even at that price vine growing is said to pay better than farming. A. woman named O-affney, the wife of a labourer, has been ; killed at Tarraville, Gip'ps Land, by being dragged round a paddock 1 by a horse, and literally smashed to pieces before it could be stopped. • " Two young gentlemen from Melbourne,',' the Riverine Herald reports, "have arrived in Echuca with two Rob Roy canoes, in which they intend making a journey to Adelaide, a distance of 1300 milea by water." "Atticus," jn .the IVJelbourne < Leader; writes \—"l\ — "I kiibw of one speculator who landed ip, Sydney about eight months ago

with ten shillings,' and is now the' proud possessor of more than £20,000, all in hard cash."

A digger was apprehended a few nights ago in Sydney by the police as " drunk and incapable," and surrounded' at the time by * ' night-hawks. " The police found £1007 in his possession, of which' he would have been eased in a few Ininutes.

•A lady who originally married her husband at the age of 16, because, though middle-aged, he was worth £40,000, prosesecuted the gentleman at Sandhurst the other day for assault. The loving couple are now keeping a greengrocer's shop. The master of the ship Royal Adelaide, which arrived in Hobson's Bay from London a few days ago, reports that on coming along the coast he noticed that the sea, at a distance of 120 miles from the 1 land, was covered with insects, such as moths and dragon-flies. The Melbourne Telegraph, says :—": — " Stinking fish are thrown down on the Prince's Bridge embankmen^ offal is interred there, dead cows are so imperfectly buried that their rotting legs project through the surface ; , but half-a-dozen councillors profess they can smell nothing." The Easter Volunteer campaign in Victoria culminated on April Ist in a grand march through Melbourne, and a combined naval and military attack and defence of Melbourne. Both affairs were unusually successful, and on the Sandridge and St. Kilda beach from 15,000 to 20,000 persons assembled to witness the latter spectacle. All passed off very well, and there were no casualties.

The death of a man whose name is pretty well known is reported by the Ballarat Star : —"The funeral of. the late- Mr Mitchell, the oculist, of Peel street,, will take place today. We are' informed that the deceased gentleman was the original patentee of the well known Mitchell's pens, and that the machinery in connection with his lately patented gold mining apparatus is on its way out from England."

"The good old days" seem to havp returned to Sandhurst, for the Independent describes a' > scene which occurred "Under the Verandah " a few days ago, quite recalling them. The place was enlivened by the vagaries of a gentleman who was apparently troubled with a plethora of wealth. He was unknown to the majority of those present, but created no small surprise by liberally scattering handfuls of silver amongst them, displaying, while doing so, a quantity of notes. Finally the foolish fellow staggered away from the scene of his exploits., and the general supposition appeared to be that he was under a mistaken impression that he was investing in cheap stocks.

There is a movement on foot just now among the benefit societies in Melbourne, to affiliate the business of life assurance upon their respective orders. The Manchester Unity Order of Oddfellows have perhaps advanced further in the matter than other societies. They propose to assure the lives of their members in sums of from £20 to £ISO, and to obtain an amendment of the Friendly Societies Act by which they may issue policies up to £500. Another order of Oddfellows, which is established on an American foundation, has before it at the present time a similar proposition, and it seems not improbable that ere long there will be brought into existence several life assurance establishments in connection with metropolitan benefit associations.

The Avoca Mail reports the case of an ec« centric sheep belonging to the Woodstock station. The animal was shorn on the 23rd March, and the following is a description of the fleece :—": — " The weight of the entire fleece was 221b. loz., and the sheep is' supposed to have been two years and four months growing his splendid coat. The lock when stretched measures thirteen inches, and. the quality of the fibre is strong, yet soft and elastic. This sheep, although seen on several occasions, was not secured for two years, during the greater part of the time keeping entirely to itself, retreating into a descent in the Ben More ranges when disturbed. The sheep is a merino wether, nearly four years old, and although carrying tbisiramense weight was in excellent condition when caught."

The Argus says : — "The members of the Turn Verein propose to organise a fire brigade, and a« correspondent suggests 1 that a Salvage Corps should be formed. We referred, the other day, to the reckless damage and loss which occur on the occasion of every fire, in consequence, of the irruption of a crowd of officious fools, savages, and thieves, whose combined ,object : is mischief and plunder.- We have since then visited a house adjoining the Theatre Royal, in which' not the slightest 'damage was I done by the fire, but the rooms of which I have the appearance of haying been sacked by a band of drunken 1 'invaders. There is hardly a piece »of furniture' which has not been more or less 'broken ; in. some cases "the injury amounts to absolute disintegration. The lady of the house states that a crowd of shouting savages .rushed through all the rooms, tore down pictures, ripped up carpets and pitched things pell-mell out of the windows. Alarge pier-glass was disposedof in this way 1 , and shattered to fragments. A piano was similarly hurled to destruction ; and some scores of statuettes, brackets, vases, and other ornaments were literally shot out upon the' pavement- When the Vandals -were remonstrated wilih, and told that it was better to take the chance of the fire than the certainty of. the fall upon the pavement, they replied with' obscene jests, and gesticulated and screamed like demons. The lpss occasioned by them is most distressing; a»d to a large extent is irreparable, " t