AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 55, 6 March 1913, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

(Sydney Daily Telegraph.) The death is announced of Mr John Aspery, a well-known native of the Hawkesbury River, at his home, Ferndale, Saokvillo lleach. Ho was in his eightieth year, and was born and resided the whole of his life in the house in which he died. A woman arrived at the office of the Clerk of Petty- Sessions, Katoomba, recently to register the birth of her twenty-fifth child, which had been born only five days before she made the application. She had walked all the way from the Katoomba Falls to the police station, a distance of some three miles.

A message from Uralla states that a cyclonic storm struck Mr Martin Shanahan’s residence, which was shifted from its foundations; the door was stove in; the verandah disappeared completely; and parts of the roof were picked up miles away. Mr Shanahan was struck by flying timber and stunned, but not seriously hurt. A corn crop was stripped and the ground was cut about as.if it had been ploughed. A peculiar incident was that a handkerchief containing money, which had been placed behind a picture on the wall, was picked up half a mile distance. The storm lasted but a few minutes. Further on large trees were blown over, and big logs h ing on the ground were blown out of the track of the storm. The aldermen of the Parkes municipal council were individually proceeded against for having failed to destroy rabbits on the common. The assistant-inspector said the land was thickly infested in places, but admitted in cross-examination that it would be impossible, without the command of large sums of money, to keep the area clear of rabbits, owing to the nature of the country and the immense number of mullock-heaps thrown up by the miners. Technical objections were taken that the council was a body corporate, and could not bo proceeded against singly; and that no single body was therefore wholly responsible. A fine of £1 'was inflicted, with costs totalling £1 7s. The Mayor only was fined. The charges against tire eight other aldermen were postponed'for two months, pending an appeal.

At Grafton, Mr and Mrs C. G. Hunt and family of four children, after partaking of light lunch, were each seized with illness. The lunch consisted entirely of bread and butter purchased a few hours previously. The children complained, and later Mr and Mrs Hunt suffered from giddiness, followed in each ca.so by fits of vomiting. One of the children,'who had gone to school, had to return home. The whole family were conveyed to the hosital. The theory is that the bread by some means became contaminated through exposure after being delivered, and an analytical examination will bo made. : ;

Tho scarcity of houses at Wagga has been a serious problem for some time, and as a consequence a large number of people lived in tents. A sanitary inspector reported to the Municipal Council that a rent-free colony had been established on the banks of the Murrumhidgee, about a mile from the town. Here nearly a hundred adults and children were camped in tents, and primitive huts, constructed of bagging and old iron. He mentioned that a whole family of seven was sleeping in a tent 8 feet wide. ■ The sanitary arrangements were very bad, and in tho winter time a bad state of affairs would exist. Several stated that owners and agents of houses objected to rent their places to people with largo families, and living in a tent had to be resorted to. Others would not exchange their rentfree “cribs” for the best house in town. Tho council decided to defer action until further information is obtained.

At Melbourne, Henry Ralph Herrington, a young man, was charged, at the Criminal Court, with having, at Gliftonhill, on February 3, wounded his mother, Emma Rachael Herrington, with intent to do her grievous bodily harm. Tho prisoner’s mother said that on the date of the alleged shooting, her son returned' home drunk She refused to give him some money, and he then went to sleep. About an hour later a bullet from a rifle grazed her temple. Herrington, in defence, said that ho had shot at a cat, but his mother got in tho way and was accidentally shot. The jury returned a verdict of unlawfully wounding. The Chief Justice said that the various shooting cases that had occurred lately for trivial motives were of a kind that ought to ho resented by a strong-minded people. Herrington would ho sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment with hard labour.