NEW SOUTH WALES.

Colonist, Issue 44, 23 March 1858, Page 3

NEW SOUTH WALES.

There has been a great deal of excitement in commercial circles in consequence of a Mr. Miranda, a Portugese, having obtained~£2o,ooo from tl^e^oint Stock Bank, upon a letter of credit, purporting to come from Messrs. Baring Brothers, which is believed to have been a forgery. The existing suspicions,, however, are based rather upon collateral evidence, and upon Mr. Miranda's subsequent proceedings, than upon any palpable evidence of forgery in the letter pf credit itself. If this man proves to be really a swindler, he has contrived one of the best laid plans ever known. He was last heard of in Melbourne, where he had turned all his cash credit (obtained through the bank here) into hard coin, and had started, as was understood, for the diggings, to enter largely on the business of gold-buying. It was supposed at first that he had been murdered for the sake of the large amount of money which he carried with him, and such may yet prove to be the case ; hut it may be also that he has absconded; and if the latter conjecture be correct, his capture is very probable.

The mutineers of the Junior are to be sent to New Bedford, by that vessel, for trial. The present, commander is the principal witness against them ; and to send prisoners (such men as these particularly) in the charge of a witness (says the Sydney Herald) seems highly objectionable. There should either be a change of captains or the prisoners should be placed under the exclusive charge of a competent person not connected with the ship's company.

-. Determined Case of Suicide, —The Binalong correspondent of the Yass Courier says : — On the 11th Februavy an inquest was held at the Police Office here, before Mr. Commissioner Beckham, touching the death of one William Morris, late a constable in the Gundagai police force, wh© had been missing for some 'three months pss; iously, referred to in last week's Courier... Thomas Williams deposed that he discovered the body whilst shepherding in the bush about a mile from his employer's residence, Mr. Lebane's, the Star Inn, Heedy Creek; it was in a sitting position, the legs crossed, and the arms thrown back as if propelling the body forward ; two handkerchiefs were tied round the neck and .suspended/the body from a small sapling.and thus the unfortunate man must nave slowly and .deliberately throttled himse'f. Witness reported the circumstance immediately to his master, Mr. Lehane. Mi*. James St. Clair, chief constable of Gundagai, identified the body as that of William Morris by his clothes, a warrant signed by the Police- Magistrate at Gundagai, and a pair of handcuffs which he found in his pockets. Morris had been a corporal in the 58th Regiment, a district constable at Wagga Wagga, and had always borne a good character. On the 4th of November last he was escorting-a prisoner (a cripple) named Henry Grant, from Gundagai to Yass en route to Goulburn; they stopped at the Star Inn, Reedy Creek, for the night, some time during which Grant effacted his escape; and it is supposed this circumstance weighed on his mind, and led him to commit the rash act of selfdestruction. Although Morris proved himself too cowardly to meet a small degree of censure, he certainly shewed almost unexampled determination in the "means he took to put an end to hia life-

The Gold-fields as a Remedy to the Monetary Crtsis.—We have doubtless as yet (says the Goulburn Chronicle) only felt the premonitory symptoms of the panic and commercial depression that appears to be extending over many of tbe old countries. The proverbial sagacity of providing against a rainy day is endorsed with the experience of every day life. There can be no doubt, that if systematic action were taken, the result would be a revival of the first successes of our golden days.

Aggravated Assault on an Orphan Boy. —At the Shoal haven Court of Petty Sessions, on the 22nd February, the District Constable laid an information against Samuel Crawford and »hisy wife Maria, for three brutal assaults committed on a little boy of 11 years of age, their bound apprentice from the Orphan Assylum, Parramatta. As the Master and Apprentices' Act only empowered Justices to inflict a ,£lO fine, and as that would have been wholly* inadequate in the present casb, the constable was directed to lay the information under the 18 Vict., No. 8, for the punishment of aggravated assaults. The. evidence, which it is hardly necessary to detail verbatim, as each witness^.corroborated the' boy's statement, was as f dlows:—The little boy, who is a bright: looking but small boy, being examined as to lis knowledge of an oath, shewed that he could read tolerably, and as it proved, write very nicely, and had some religious . instinotion. His name is Thomas Duster, and his evidence given before a magistrate before the laying of the information to the District Constable, and now to the Court, varied not one hair's breadth. He was assigned with another boy from the fame asylum, on the recommendation of Father Young, to Samuel Crawford, a man' living at Tomarong, on his own ground. The other boy was beaten till he absconded, and returned to Parramatta. (It seems strange that the directors of "that institution should not have immediately removed Duster.) Duster, to his sorrow, stayed, being beaten sometimes once, sometimes three or four timbs a week, lying in an unenclosed shed oh a'sheet of hark, feeling sometimes very cold, deprived of his shoes, and obliged to,go barefoot,' seeing his, best cjothes for the three first Sundays, but not afterwards; fed on potatoes, bread,and tea; no butter, milk, or meat. Oh Sunday, the 31s. January; he was charged with eating nearly sixty lbs. sugar, and though he denied it,1 and theVe

was no proof of it, Crawford tied him up to,a fence, and Mrs. Crawford flogged him with a stockwhip till lie/said he had eaten it, as he said, to save himself from more. -.. Qn Sunday, the 7th instant. he ; .was asked, after returning from catching the bullocks,, whether he .had seen a ...horse. He., said;;yes*, and was''then flogged till he said no. 0h Thursday morning at daylight ;he was accused Of eating a bit of fowl left in,', the ' safe, andidenying.it, was. flogged by Mrs. Crawford till he said yes.... He was then, sent out without breakfast into the bush to look for bullocks, and luckily he lost his way; wandering about till-at five o'clock p.m., he found himself near the house of cine John M'Grath. ,John was from home, but. his people, like good Samaritans, fed the tired, hungry boy, and M'Grath shortly came in. He. asked ''where, the-hoy came from, a*n,d was.-."about" to take him back to his master, when the boy begged hard to be allowed to sleep there. To this M'Grath consented, and Tommy slept \till dawn, when M'Grath started with-'him ; sind shewed him the road tn Crawford's. John then returned to his. house,- and in about a quarter of an hour Tommy reappeaied, saying he was too frightened to go back. M'Grath made enquiries of him and examined his body, and instead of returning him to his master, got a neighbour to lend a horse and a boy to take him to the District Constable, in whose hands he was placed* the same day. His body, was a mass of bruises and cuts, he was begrimmed with filth, stiff and sore with stripes, and ragged to- a degree. One question of the defendant deserves recording. "When I bate you tother day, Tommy, was it for nothing? Was it not for spilling half the potatoes out of the two buckets I made you carry ? " The Bench expressed a feeling that if the boy had spilt the whole of the potatoes, he would not have been to blame. Was he to carry a load that is quite sufficient for a powerful man ? A witness for the defence, and brother of Crawford's wife, rather strengthened the boy's case, though his leaning was obvious. The Court sentenced Crawford to three calendar months with hard labour at Darlinghurst. The wife offered to pay any fine to get him off, but was severely reprimanded for her share in the brutalities of her husband. The Bench strongly commended M'Grath for his humane and charitable conduct, and Dr. Aldcorn expressed his intention of taking the boy if the authorities at Parramatta would consent. Mr. Richard's kindly undertook the boy's case without fee.— Empire.

Extraordinary Phenomenon.—The following letter from the Hon. Charle3 Augustus Murray, her Majesty's envoy to Persia, to Sir Charles Lyell, has been published :—"Bagdad, May 23, 1857. My dear Sir Charles,—We have lately witnessed here a phenomenon so strange that a brief description of it may not bo uninteresting, to. you. On the 20th instant, a few minutes befoe six p.m. (which is here about an hour before sunset], I was sitting with my Mirza reading some Persian letters, when on a-sudden I became sensible of an unusual obscuration of the light on the paper; I jumpedup, and, going to the window, saw a huge black ch'iirl approaching from the'north? west, "exactly as if a pall were being drawn over the face'of the heavens. It must hnve travelled with consideralbe rapidity, for in less than three minutes we were enveloped in total darlcnes3—a darkness more intense than an ordinary midnight, wheu neither stars nor moon are visible. Groping my way amid chairs and tables,! succejdjd in striking a light, and then,, feeling" assured that a simoon of some kiiid was coming on, I called to my servants to come up and shut the windows, which were all open, the weather having been previously very sultry. While they were doing so, the wind increased, arid bore with it such a dense volume of dust and sand that before they could succeed in closing the windows the room was entirely filled, so that the tables and furniture were speedily-covered. Meanwhile a panic seized the whole city-.; the Armenians and other Christian sects rushed through the gloom ■to "confess and pray in the churches; women shrieked and beat their breasts in the streets; and the men of all classes prostrated themselves in prayer,, believing that the end of the world had arrived. After a short time the black darkness was succeeded by a red hind gloom such as I never saw' in any part of the world, and which I can only liken in imagination to the effect that might be produced if all London were in conflagration in a heavy November fog; to trie it was more striking;(l may almost say fearful), than the previous utter darkness, and reniirided me of that' darkness visible' in which the poetic, genius of Milton placed the demons and horrid shapes of the infernal regions. This lurid fog was doubtless occasioned by the rays of the western sun shining obliquely on the dense mass of red sand or dust which had been raised from some distant desert, and wasi borne along <upoi_ the blast. I enclose you a specimen of the dust. The Arabs here think that it came from the Nejd. The storm seems to have travelled in a circular direction, having appeared first from the south, then southwest, then west, then north-wo-st. After about* two hours it had so far passed away that we were able to open the windows again and breath the outer air. It cannot have been a simoon, for during those which I have experienced in Arabia and Egypt; the wind was hot and stifling. On the 20th the wind was high, but only oppressive from the dense mass of dust that it carried with it."—Professor J. Queketti ofthe Royal College of Surgeons, having examined the specimen of dust from Bagdad w'jich accompanied Miv Murray's letter, has informed Sir Charles Lyell that he could detect, under the microscope, only inorganic particles, such as: quartz sand, in the dust; There are no relics of Diat inmaceae apparent; and, though-a ;small portion of calcareous matter was present in the sand, yet he could observe no microscopic shells or other organic matter.

The Russians in the Pacific.-—"A.- letter from St. Petersburg says :—Several years before' the Eastern war, the Emperor Nicholas had sent a committee of officers and scientific men to explore the course of the Amoor to the point at \whjch it pours'its'waters into the Pacific. After ' receiving the report of this'c >mmittee, the Emperor decreed the formation of the port .and town of Nicohijeff. This town is now daily increasing in' wealth, and population:';' many Chinese and Americans have emigrated thither, and i.ijs cpmmerce inconsiderable. The port o v Nrobije^will.admit the largest yesseh of war,' and the Grand Duke Consiantine has just sent a number of supeii ;r officers of the navy and of the engineer corps, toge*herwith a, certain number of, subalterns, to take the command or organise the, crews of the vessels already constructed there. -The Russian positions at the month of the Ainoor have become remarkably "strong,: and a Russian flotilla cau always '.find', a refuge in the river itself, without having to fear any pursuit from'an enemy's fleet