LATE AUSTRALIAN NEWS

Colonist, Volume XII, Issue 1264, 5 November 1869, Page 3

LATE AUSTRALIAN NEWS

Suspicious Poisoning Case.—At Mr. Robertson's station, Mount Emu, Victoria, twenty-two men employed as shearers were poisoned by the cook having used arsenic in the water employed to boil the cabbage in insfcead* of carbonate of soda. The quantity used was enough to kill 200 men. Dr. Johnson, of Beaufort, and Dr. Nason, ofCarngham, were immediately sent for, and Mr. Robertson promptly administered such antidotes as were available, pending the doctors' arrival. All of the men are recovering, but they have undergone severe suffering. It is said that a cook who was discharged recently, at the instance of the shearers, told the new cook that the bottle contained carbonate of soda, whereas it was really arsenic. This is regarded as so suspicious that the police%ove taken the matter in hand.—Melbourne Argun, Oct. 22.

Salmon tn Tasmania.—A telegram from Hobart ;Town, dated October 22nd, states: —The first salmon \yms caught last night. Ikin and' another fisherman were fishing in the Derwent irr-: Beauty Bay with a seine, when they captured a ssilmon —one ten inches long and five inches in girth, and a second nine inches long. The commissioners and a great concourse of citizpns are now ai the museum inspecting the fish, and the incident has naturally occasioned great excitement. The fish are the natural production of the Derwent, i c., they are the offspring of salmon which had been hatched from the original ova, and consequently may be looked upon as the second generation.

Murder in Queensland.—Another murder has been perpetrated in Queensland, under circumstances briefly narrated in the following telegram, published by the Northern Argus : —" On the 3rd October, a person stopped at the hut occupied by two shepherds on an out-station on Mrs. M'Nab's Kianga run. During the night he stabbed one of the shspherds to tiie heart, who died insiantly ; the other he wounded, but not so severely a3 to prevent him from escaping. The following morning the murderer proceeded to Mr. Ferguson's station, and stated what he had done. He was covered with blood; he said that he had been hunted by black troopers, who had tracked him all the way from Eockhampton. From some cause or another the man was not arrested ; it is presumed, because no one believed his story. On the 7th the police came upon him in the bush; he was then entirely naked. He will be in Eockhampton in the coarse of a few days. It is stated that he is alunatic. The story about his being huuted by the black police was a pure fabrication."

A remarkable hail-storm took place on the 10th of October, the ill effects of which seem to have been specially observable in the Ovens district of Victoria, and the Yass district of New South Wales. A correspondent of the Geelong Advertiser furnishes the subjoined memorandum : —"A hail-storm passed over Rochester and a portion of the agricultural area of Namulla on Sunday evening, 10th inst., doing considerable damage to the wheat crops, which were chiefly in ear at the time. The hail fell for about half-an-hour over an area of about ten miles long by one mile in breadth, and damaged, more or less, 1000 acres of wheat. About one half may cut a light crop of hay, while the other 500 are totally ruined. The hail-stones were from one to t.ree inches in diameter, and some of the largest, which were weighed, were found to be from five to nine ounces."

The Melbourne Argus of October 22nd, states : — " A telegraphic despatch received yesterday from Brisbane by Mr. W. C. Rees, secretary of the Harbor department, confirms the distressing news of the massacre at Prince of Wales Island of twenty-eight persons, supposed to be the captain and crew of the cutter Sperwer, and a portion of the crew of another vessel who had been picked up by the cutter. The Sperwer was owned and commanded by Captain Jas. Grascoigne, well known in this port, and is the same little craft to which quite a romantic interest is attached, from her disastrous passage from Batavia last year, when she had to put into Port M'Donnell, destitute of provisions and water, and with only Captain Grascoigne able to work her. After a refit here she sailed again in November of last year with Captain Gfascoigne and a crew of seven men. The telegram to the secretary of tbe Harbor department was from the police magistrate at Somerset, and stated that he had visited Prince of Wales Island, and buried the remains of no fewer than twenty-eight persons." A Tbemendotts Meteob. — A Rockhampton (Queensland) paper contains a strange story of a meteor, alleged to have been seen by a gentleman travelling on horseback in the neighborhood of Mount Wheeler. Evening had set in, when he was startled byasoundresemblingalongandloudshriek. He turned round, and it appeared to him as if the hemisphere were in a blaze; the whole of the country wa9 lit up as bright as daylight. His horse was so frightened that he nearly leaped from under him. When he first looked round, he saw an enormous hall of fire tvaveliing from the north-east, and when it approached the mountains it burst into thousands of sparks resembling skyrockets ; they shot out into lengthened streaks of flame, as if about to enter the hill, but they passed over the top, and in a direction towards the earth. There was a strong sulphurous smell, and the noise made by the ball of fire, which is described as probably weighing many tons, was peculiarly startling and awful.—Melbourne Argus, Oct. 25.

Another diamond of rare lustre has hern recently found by Mr. Miiudfsley, a miner, at Sevastopol, in the Orens district, Victoria. It is not large, b..t. although un.-ut, is exceedingly brilliant. Thr Me;bourne Argus of October 26th, snya:— "A ca c printing some rather romantic features came before the Sundridge Bench yesterday, when a grtiL'r, mimed John Smith, was charged with attempting to commit suicide. It appeared from the evidence that on landing a'rer a lon^ voyage, about thri-e weeks a?o, the pri-oner found that his wife had abandoned the shelter of his r of, and had gone to live with another se»man. with whom she hnd be-.-n slaying for the last eigiit months. He pi-ojoe..iod to their house, and confronted tho guilty pair, but wa» subsequently induced to leave. The next day, wh*n in a state of intoxication, he repeated his visit, and told his wife that he had come to see h«r for the laot time, and would never interfere with her again. Adding the words 'there is a proof of it,' he sUhbed himself in the breast seven times with a digger knife, but fortunately the wounds he inflicted were not very dangerous. He was conveyed to the hospital, and was cured in about a week. The Bench discharged him with a caution, considering that, as he was intoxicated when he committed the offence, he did not stab himself with any felonious intent."

The English Cricketers coming ottt to Axtstealia —The Melbourne Argus of October 26fh give 3 the following:—By telegraph from Adelaide, we learn that the names and counties of the 12 English Cricketers who were to sail from Liverpool for Melbourne on the 20th September last were as follows: —Mr. W. Grace (Gloucester), J. Smith (Cambridge^, Alfred Shaw (Nottingham), Atkinson (Yorkshire), EmJiett (Yorkshire), Lockwood (Yorkshire), J. Eowbottom (Yorkshire), Cbirlwood (Sussex), E. Willsher (Kent), Southerfcon (Surrey), Jupp (Surrey) ; and Pooley (Surrey), twelfth man. It will be seen that the only " gentleman" player in the team is Mr. W. G. Grace, a brother of Mr. E. M. Grace, who came out with Parr's team, in 18G3. Mr. W. G. Grace is one of the finest —if not the finest—bats in England, and as a run-getter lias never been equalled. Unlike his brother, he is not a mere " slogger," but a scientific! cricketer, and has obtained some of his most remarkable scores off the finest bowling in England. The team is very strong in bowling, Shaw, Atkinson, Southerton, Emmett, and Willsher being all celebrated in that line, the two latter using the left hand. «Tupp and J. Smith are two of the first professional bats of the day, and Pooley is considered by many to be a better wicketkeeoer than even the redoubtable Loekyer. Tae fact that Pooley should have been selected as twelfth man shows that the team must be one of remarkable strength, and we may confidently expect an exhibition of cricket such as ha 3 never been seen before in the colonies. The name of the captain is not mentioned, but it is supposed that Willsher is most likely to have been chosen for the post of honor.