OUR AUSTRALIAN LETTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2325, 22 September 1898, Page 11

OUR AUSTRALIAN LETTER.

(Fkom Our Own Correspondent.) MELBOURNE, September 3. | A PAMPERED INDUSTRY. The Maffra Beet Sugar Industry in this ' colony is apparently certain to end in dis- j ; mal failure. The company has lost over J £6000 since it began operations, though, only \ one season has elapsed. Parliament started it with an advance of £50,000, and has just agreed to a further loan of £13,000. The feeling was that if the £13,000 was withheld, there would be absolutely no chance of getting back the £50,000 ; still there was an uncomfortable conviction that it was after all a case of throwing good money after bad. There seem to be two principal causes of failure. First, the beet does not ' contain a sufficient percentage of saccharine J matter. The company's supporters say this i will improve after the first season ; but the j doubters assert that it cannot be improved \ in a sub-tropical climate. The second cause J is the difficulty of getting the landowner i to grow the beet. It pays him better to go in for dairying ; and the end will be that the company will have to depend on its own growing, which it cannot do without buy- ( ing much more land than it can afford to hold. And if growing won't pay the farmer it won't pay the company. The Age argues that the money has not been thrown away — it has gone to pay wages. But under this , line of argument the Government would be ( justified in dumping gold down in some , gully for men to earn wages in picking it up again. ! IMPROVING PROSPECTS. The success of the annual agricultural show in Melbourne has been spoilt by rain, j It opened on Tuesday and closes to-day (Saturday), but only the first day was fine. The rain has been almost general in Vie- , toria, serving to render the season's pros- | pects (which already were superb) the finer. ; And, still better, Riverina and the New South Wales pastoral country generally has had a splendid downpour. Everyone is in the best of spirits. The show, in spite of the persistent rain, has had a very large attend- \ ance, for country people came to town in I droves. Ever so many conferences — the dairymen, the fruitgrowers, the wheat ex- ! port individuals, and so forth — have been i held. The wheat export movement has resulted in a scheme which provides that the name of the company should be the Australian Farmers' Co-operative Company, | Limited ; that its objects should be the ex- ' port of wheat and cereals and their products ; the erection of mills, stores, and i granaries, or the leasing or renting of such buildings ; arranging for advances to farmers on the security of their wheat and other grain ; arranging for the importation of bags and other farmers' requirements ; the chartering of vessels ; and, generally, the proper management of the company. It is significant of the prospects of the country and of the recovery (at last) from boom effects- that all the banks are improving their position. The Union Bank has earned an increased £10,000 in net profits for the half year. The Bank of Australasia jis £5000 to the good for the year, j and raises its dividends from 5 to 6 per cent. These two institutions with the Bank of New South .Wales, j weathered the storm of 1893, so that their success is not so extraordinary, as they undoubtedly secured a large accession of business at that time. But it is more significant still that the local banks, which had to shut their doors, are increasing by bounds i in public favour. In the Bank of Victoria the Stock Exchange quotation for ordinary shares has increased during the single month of -August from 18s 6d to 40s ; National Bank ordinary shares from 30s to 48s ; and Commercial Bank preference shares from 76s to 925. ENCOURAGING THE PUBLICAN. j The Temperance t>arty is showing signs of activity in Melbourne. This is accounted for by the fact that a licensed victuallers' deputation had quite a sym- ! pathetic reception from the Premier a few days ago. They complained to him of the harsh Sunday restriction provisions of the present law, and Sir George Turner replied to them that he approved of Sunday trading during certain hours, with severe penalties for selling after the prescribed time, rather than see the present unsatisfactory system continue. The person who induced "the licensee to sell the liajior should also be punished severely. And he promised to take the Cabinet opinion on the subject. On this the Victorian Alliance ({he temperance organisation) has naturally had a good deal to say at its ' annual gathering. Mr H. W. Green (the ex-Dunedin evangelist) was one of the leading speakers,^ and strong opposing resolution 1 ? were adopted. Mr John Vale had a good deal to say about the Clutha district, but very little interest is taken here in the question of prohibition (New ZeaJanders are looked upon as mostly

1 " cranks ") and the newspaper reports dismiss him with a line or two. A SYDNEY TRAGEDY. | A revolting tragedy was committed on Tuesday morning in George street, and resulted in the instant death of a young girl, the inflicting of terrible injuries to a man and two children 1 , and the wounding I of a woman. ; Napoleon George Lisson is a tobacconist and barber. He opened his shop at the usual hour, and conducted his business until 10 o'clock without the slightest intimation that during the previous 24 hours he had been planning a terrible act of revenge for some supposed slight. The object of his resentment was Montague Henry Mordant, who for some time pre- \ viously had been employed by him to dis- j pose of goods in the city and suburbs i on commission. Lisson, however, during I the previous week had a disagreement with Mordant over some business matters, with the result that Mordant commenced to deal with other firms. This fact irritated Lisson most unreasonably, but he appeared to soon cool down. He asked Mordant to call, and invited him upstairs to a sitting room to complete the signing of an agreement. Mordant sat down at the table, and prepared to draw up the document, Lisson standing meanwhile some few feet distant apparently watching him writing. No one can say whether these preliminaries were premeditated or whether 'some words with Mordant about money matters aroused Lisson's ungovernable tern- ' per, and impelled him to attack his traveller. Suddenly, however, while Mordant was leaning down writing, and quite ignorant of his intentions, Lisson seized a claw hammer and aimed a terrific blow , at Mordant's head. The hammer struck on the edge of the skull, and the force of the blow knocked Mordant off his seat, but , without rendering him insensible. j To his horror Mordant saw Lisson snatch up a knife, and heard him shout in pas- j sionate terms, " I've got yoii now, you , and I will kill you !" The next instant Lisson made a wild onslaught upon the prostrate man, and sought to cut his throat, but Mordant succeeded in diverting the point of the knife. It, however, caught the lobe of his ear, and almost cut it off. He threw Lisson to the and rushed downstairs, past the astonished and terrified customers, into the street. ' Attracted by the noise of the struggle. Mrs Lisson entered the room to pacify her husband, with whose sudden outbursts of temper she had had previous experiences. ; She found him with a five-chambered revolver in his hand, preparing to descend in pursuit of Mordant. Throwing herself upon him, Mrs Lisson entreated him to 1 give up the weapon and abandon his on- | slaurfit. As far as can be ascertained, he thrust her aside and fired at her, shooting her through the wrist. When she in turn I rushed downstairs, one of the employees named Winch ventured to the top of the : landing, and there saw the dead body of , Miss Lily Gorrick, a sister of Mrs Lis- ' son, lying in a pool of blood, with a gaping wound in her throat. • j The police arrived at this stage, and also prqceeding upstairs arrested Lisson without resistance. A search waa then made of the premises, which were deluged in blood. Miss Gorrick's body was found as described. There was a wound below her ear, and another on the side of the cheek. Not far away, also upon the floor, lay one of Lisson's two little boys, while , stretched upon a mattress in another room was the form of the other child. Both boys were unconscious, and suffering from terrible wounds in the head. What happened after Mrs Lisson had fled from her demented husband no one can tell. It is surmised, however, that Lisson, seeing her fall after he had fired the revolver, assumed that he had killed her ; that he then took up his double-barrelled gun, and as he went out upon the land- : ing he met his sister-in-law, coming from I an adjoining room, and shot her dead. Casting aside the gun, both barrels of which he had discharged, he went in search of his two little children, evidently with the intention of destroying the whole of the family. Despite "the boj-s' piteous i cries, he simply battered in their skulls with the hammer with which he had first attacked Mordant. This task he had evidently just finished when the police made their appearance. | The reason of the outburst on Lisson's 1 part is not known. i His behaviour subsequent to the tragedy, his utter callousness at the opening of the 1 inquest on Miss Gorrick's body, as well as ! the other facts which have since come to i light, hardly bear out the theory that the I whole affair was the result of a sudden imI pulse. I When brought to view the body of Miss ' Gorrick, and asked if he recognised it, he 1 exclaimed, with a low laugh, "It looks like her, but I'm d if I know her again.' 1 In his cell he varied his time by whistling and singing, apparently quite unconcerned as to the seriousness of hi* position. Lisson is of French c* traction, and, be-

sides being the proprietor of a very prosperous wholesale and retail tobacconist and barber's business, is possessed of a large amount of landed property at Paddington, Forest Lodge, ancTother suburbs. His sole anxiety has been for his two children. He has inquired repeatedly if they are dead, and when informed in the negative, said, " Well, it would be better if they were." • He was a most affectionate husband, and it is generally thought that his attack upon his children was due to a belief that he had fatally injured his wife in the struggle when "she wrested the revolver from him. The elder boy, Victor, is better, and it is now thought he may live. The younger child is still hovering between life and death.