AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1904, 15 June 1892, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Tuesday, May 31.

GENERAL. Arrangements have been made for reopening the Standard Bank, a call of 10s per share having been made on shareholders. Mr E. Langton has been appointed chairman of directors. Mr E. G. Fitzgibbon, the chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Workß, has been commissioned by that body to proceed to London for the purpose of placing the Board's loan of L 2,000,000 ou the market. During hiß absence C. M. Lang, the Mayor of Melbourne, will supervise the Board's afftMrs. A terrible accident, resulting in thfi death of one man and the serious injury of another, happened in Melbourne on Saturday evening. During a heavy thunderstorm an eleotric wire at the intersection of Lonsdalß and Russell streets gave way, and fell across the roadway, where the insulating material covering the wire strands took fire, and remained burning for some little time. Presently a bystander, named Charles Henry Andrews, attempted to coil up the broken wire, the almost immediate result being that be received a severe shock, and was unable to let the wire drop, A companion, named Hubert Wells, who caught hold of Andrews with both hands to try and disengage him from the wire, received the full force of the current, and fell instantly senseless. After this no one dared to touch Andrews, who lay writhing on the pavement, but at last the wire was cut with an axe, and both men were taken to the Melbourne Hospital. Wells was dead, but Andrews had escaped with a severe shock and a badly burned hand, and was able after a time to set out for his own home, i A fatal gas explosion occuired at Newcastle yesterday. Two employes of the Newcastle Gas Company, named George Flint and William Webb, were engaged repairing a meter in a house in Steel street, when, from some unexplained reuaou, a terrible explosion took place. Flint was killed on the spot, and Webb bo badly injured that he was unable to give any account of the accident. At the Sydney quarter sessions yesterday Herbert Salwey, a solicitor, was charged with defrauding the National Bank of Australasia of L 2.500. AccorJing to the cvi« dence for the prosecution Salwey obtained an overdraft for the sum in question from the bank on a third share of certain property known as Dover Heights, which he stated was unencumbered by mortgage. The bank granted the overdraft, but subsequently ascertained that the property was mortgaged to the full value. The accused was found not guilty and acquitted. On a second charge of having stolen ten documents of titles to land, tne property of the Union Bank of Australia, accused was remanded till next sittings of the quarterly sessions. Bail was allowed, the accused in Ll,ooo, and one seourity for a similar amount;. An unusual scene occurred on "varnishing day " at the new gallery of the Victorian Artists' Society, which was opened last week. Preparations had been made for the usual winter exhibition, and airoog other exhibitors Mr James Peele, a member of the society, had, by request, submitted six works. The " Hauging Committee " elected by the council of the society rejected four of these, including, as Mr Peele declares, his very best work as well as his largest, a very fine painting of 'Govett's Leap,' and had the other two hung for exhibition, but Mr Peele objected to being represented by the two pictures selected, and demanded that they should be returned to him. The Committee declined to accede to his request, whereupon he cut the canvases out of the frames in the presence cf the chairman and prepared to take them away with him. A constable was sent for, and a man in the employ of the Committee was instructed to guard the door of the building and prevent Mr Peele from leaving. Mr Peele, however, finally made his escape by a back way from the gallery. The canvases which he cut out are still in the possession of the Committee. The pulling of an alderman's nose formed an item of the proceedings at a special meeting of the North Sydney Council last - Wednesday night for the election of mayor. Alderman Clarke accused Alderman Urquhart of toadying, and said it was a cowardly action for him to refuse to attend the previous meeting, which lapsed for want of a quorum. Alderman Urquhart replied that be had as much courage as Alderman Clarke. The exchange of personalities went on till Alderman Clarke rose excitedly and asked Alderman Urquhart to "come outaide." The invitation was refused, whereupon Alderman Clarke rushed up and pulled his nose. Alderman Urquhart called the chairman's attention to what he termed " a gross assault," and at the conclusion of the meeting said he would give Alderman Clarke a chance of making a public apology, and if this was not done he would take pro- | ccedings. Alderman Clarke, in reply, said be was not afraid of what Alderman Urquhart would do outside, but he was sorry he had forgotten himself in the heat of the moment. He tendered an apology, and offered to shake hands. The negotiations for peace, however, fell through, and It is understood that Alderman Urquhart intends to take legal proceedings. A rather sensational tram accident took place at the intersection of Collins and Swanston streets in Melbourne last week. A tram going east along Collins street ran into the dummy of one that was coming south down Swanston street, and violently threw it off the track, breaking the gripper and the head railing, and leaving it a wreck at one side. Two ladies who were sitting on the front of the dummy were considerAbly Bhaken, and more or less injured. Miss Myra Brown, of Brunswick, Buffered moßt, being badly cut and bruised, while her companion, Mrs Watson, of Hastings, was also severely shaken, and suffered a loss of another kind in the theft of her handbag, containing L 22 and various papers. Miss Griffiths, of Cecil street, South Melbourne, was taken to Dr Bouton's, suffering from a contusion on the head and other injuries ; and Mr Edward Con way, of North Melbourne, and Mr John Riley, of North Carlton, were also hurt, but less seriously. It was fortunate that the Collins street car did not strike in the middle of the crossing dummy, as the result might have been much , more serious. The cause of the accident was that the gripper of the Collins street car caught on a loose strand of the cable, and the gripman was consequently unable to let go the rope. A shocking murder has occurred at Thursday Island on board the schooner Skitty Belle. The cabin boy being missing, suspicion fell upon the cook — a Chilian, named Moncedo. On his bunk being searched portions of the lad's body were fonnd, along with blood-stained clothes belonging to the accused. The main portion of the body, which must have been terribly mutilated, had been thrown overboard, and could not be fonnd. Monceda has been committed for trial. Some kanakas' boxes on the brig Para, which was to sail from Brisbane with re* . turned islanders, were examined a few days ago by the Customs officer. Two boxes were found to have false bottoms, and in one box concealed in the false bottom were found a rifle and ninety rounds of ball cartridge, two flaskß of gunpowder, and a box of caps j in the other box were two flasks of gunpowder, a box of caps, and a flask of whisky. These were all confiscated, tho export of arms, ammunition, and liquor to $he South Sea Islands being prohibited.

George Burgess, a magnetist, has been committed for trial by a coroner's jury on a charge of manslaughter. He had exercised hie art on a Warrnambool girl who had been pronounced by two doctors to be suffering trom an internal cancer. His treatment consisted of rubbing liniment and oil over the region of the cancer, and, it resulted in the hastening of the girl's death from blood poisoning and exhaustion. The Land Credit~Bank frauds have been made the subject of fresh criminal proceedings, in which C. N. Taylor and C. E. Clarke are the accused. The Crown Prosecutor, in opening the case, alleged no fewer than thirteen overt acts of conspiracy to defraud the bank of sums amounting in all to L 37.000. About half of these acts were alleged to have been committed by the insertion of false balances iv a book called the "weekly balances of individual accounts book." This book was made up once a week for the purpose of giving the diiectors information as to the state of the various accounts in the bank : and for about three years, it was alleged, the real state of Clarke's overdraft was kept from the directors by the book being made to show that his indebtedness was less than it really was. Another form of fraud, i 6 was represented, was compassed by exchanging cheques. Clarke was alleged to have on the days on whioh the directors met in each week drawn chequesonthe bank, had them marked as good by the manager, and then exchanged them for those of money lenders, afterwards paying them into his credit and thus apparently reducing his indebtedness, Another offence alleged was in connection with Clarke's insolvency in 1890, and consisted in the omission from his schedule of all mention of his overdrawn account'at the bank, or cf Taylor's proving for the debt, although ha proved ou the estate for another debt.

An action was brought in the Melbourne County Court on Thursday last by Martin Tobin, a railway emploje, to recover LSOO from Messrs Crawford and Blair, merchants, as damages for trespass, The plaintiff's case was that in May of last year he rented a cottage in Stawell street, West Melbourne, from Me Bowden, who gave him notice to quit, but afterwards told him to stay on. Bowden sold the property to Crawford and Blair, and on the 4th August they gave him a notice to give up possession and clear out by seven o'clock that evening. He did not clear out, and on the next morning while he was away from the cottage the roof was taken off it, and some of his furniture was injured by rain. The defence was that Tobin was a trespasser because he had received notice to quit from both Bowden and the defendants. Judge Casey, who heard the case, returned a verdict for the plaintiff, damages L 5, costs to be taxed.

.SANITY OF DEEMING.

Now that the murderer has been disposed of, Mr Haynes, who acted as his counsel at Perth, in Western Australia, has thrown off all reserpe and communicated to the local Press what passed between Deeming and himself. Mr Hay no's statement is as follows : — "On the ISth of March I received a telegram from York, signed 'Baron Swanston,' asking me to meet him at the Perth police station, I did so. He said quickly to me : ' The only evidence they can give against me is circumstantial evidence' I saw him again, and he seemed then much calmer. Before making any statement he said : • When I speak to you you are my lawyer, and I suppose it is like speaking to myself.' I said 'Yes 1 ; but you had better tell me who you are, and where you have come from.' ' Well,' he said, 'I came over in the Albany from Melbourne, and I am the man Williams who came out in the Kaiser Wilhelm.' He seemed perfectly aware of the finding of the body of Emily Mather in Melbourne. I told him that » cablegram had been received from England, and published in the ' West Australian,' stating that he was suspected of being the person who had lived in the house at Rainbill which a woman and several children were seen to visit, and that they were never seen again. I also told him that the floor of one of the rooms in that house had beeen cemented, and that a search was about to be made under the cement. While I was telling him this he seemed to be agitated, but he merely remarked 'Humph.' Amongst the first things^he said to me on the following day was the question : ' Did they find the remains of a woman and three or four children ? ' I said : ' Did you ever live at Rainhill ? ' ' No,' he replied ; • I don't know where it is.' I said to him : ' They say you are Jack the Ripper. ' To this he made the same answer 'Humph.' He sent for me later in the afternoon, and told me that he would make a full statement of how he became acquainted with Emily Mather. On one occasion he asked me what would become of him if he were liberated on the charge in Melbourne. I said 'They are pretty sure to arrest you, and take you back to England.' He shuddered, and said ' Oh, I don't want to go to England. I would rather be finished off in Melbourne.' I asked Dr Haynes to examine him and ascertain whether there was any chance of a plea of insanity being entertained, but the doctor after seeing him said that there was not a trace of insanity about him. On the day Detective Cawsey and Mr Hirschfeldt arrived to identify him he particularly asked me to be present at the identification, and I consented. Prior to this he had obtained a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles, -which he said he wanted for writing. Attempts were made to get him photographed, but although photographers came down on two or three occasions no photograph was taken, j The arrangements were carried so far j upon one of these occasions that a hairdresser was brought down to shave him. j When I happened to be there the hairdresser made arrangements to begin shaving. The prisoner sat down quite contentedly, and said to the hairdresser ' I will have it all off.' The barber looked at him ia amazement, and then said to the sub-inspector lAmI to take it off ? ' ' Oh, not that moustache,' said the sub-inspector. 'Oh,' said Deeming ; 'no ehave, no photograph. I have not been accustomed to have a moustache on.' The barber then went away. After this I reasoned with the prisoner, and told him not to have his moustache off, as its removal would make it appear to the jury that he had some motive in altering his appearance. ' Ob, well,' he said, ' I will have it off, even if I have to break a tumbler and shave it with a piece of glass.' My impression of him was that he was a man incapable cf speaking the truth. One remark which struck me as being perhaps the only true statement he made was in reply to an observation of mine that he was suepected of a murder in Queensland. ' No,' he said, ' I never committed a crime till after I left Sydney.' On the morning he was brought before the Bench he handed me a note upon which was written these words : ' For my Solicitor,—Would it not do for me to make the following answer to the charge when read out to me in Court :— That I am not guilty, but if it is Emily Williams who is killed, which I doubt very much, I know who the murderer is?' Added to this was a memo, about writing out the particulars • of the 'Hill,' meaning the Rainhill murders, ' so that you can put Mr Hilbert (his solicitor in Hull) or the Hull police on the trace of them.' That little document completely upsets the theory of insanity in respect to both murders."

A LONG CRUISE IN A PUNT.

On the 28th of April, during a heavy gale, the barque Elizabeth struck on the Lepu reef in the Coral Sea. The masts went over the side, and two boats were carried away, leaving only the dingey, The crew made a,

raft of loose spars, a topmast, and the deck fittings, and the captain and carpenter in the dingey tried to tow it off the reef. The tow line parted, and the boat was thrown over on end and lost. With the raft the men got back to the ship, and two days later decided to build a punt of the deckplanking of the ship. This they did, though the Elizabeth lay on her beam ends, with the sea washing at high water over her deck, which lay at an angle of s (ieg.i eg. The punt was finished in five days, covered with oiled and tarred canvas, and on the tenth day they left the Bhip, steering for the Claremont lightship, where they arrived in sixteen days, the distance being 600 miles. The captain saved his sextant, chronometer, and chart, but lost the log. The crew lost their clothes. The captain of the lightship gave the shipwrecked crew information about the steamer Victoria, en route for Brisbane, and offered to take them aboard the lightship if the punt was uneeaworthy. Captain Henriksen decided to stay on the punt, and boarded the Victoria next day. The crew hope that the Norwegian Consul will send them home to Norway.

WREOK OF THE SUNBEAM,

The steam yacht Sunbeam, well known in connection with several voyages made in her by Lord and Lady Brassey, has been lost off the North Australian coast. On March 27 the Sunbeam was iying off an island in Admiralty Gulf, at the north of the Kimberley district, when a leak was discovered. The vessel was run ashore and patched up. After she had been lying there twelve hours the first mate reported that water was making fast. The captain went to the engine room and discovered a hole 6in long, caused by corrosion. Canvas was fixed on the hole, and every attempt was made to beach the vessel. She was stranded on a mudbank, and the crew landed safely in the boats, the captain remaining on board until the decks were almost level with the water. The Sunbeam sank half a mile from shore. Futile attempts were made to get her off, but she was firmly embedded in the mudbank. The crew landed at Dicky Bay, where the rest of the pearling schooners were lying. In consequence of the steamer not being expected for three weeks, Capt, Read determined to proceed to Roebuck Bay in a whaleboat, and there place himself in communication with the owners of the yacht. The residents of Admiralty Gulf endeavored to dissuade him from doing this, but he persisted in his attempt, which was successful. Nine men accompanied him. The Natives along the coast were very hostile, threatening the voyagers with their spears on one occasion when they attempted to land. The party arrived at Cygnet Bay, inside the entrance of King Sound, on April 17. There they procured supplies and proceeded on their voyage, reaching Roebuck Bay, 400 miles distant, on April 20. The men landed in excellent health Viscount' Cantelupe purchased the Sunbeam from Lord Brassey, his object being to engage in pearling on the North Australian coast. Captain Reid brought the vessel out from Englandt

.SOUTH SEA OUTRAGES.

The captain of the brigantine Hallyßayley, which arrived at Sydney on Sunday, reports that whilst the vessel was at Howlah news was received from Santa Anna of the murder by Natives of a European trader named Frank Nyburg. The murder was committed towards the latter end of April. Nyburg, who bad a trad id g station on the island, was one day visited by some Natives from the neighboring village bent on trade. They brought copra with them, and began parleying with Nyburg for tobacco in ex change. Before any business "was done, however, a quarrel arose, and one of the Natives was shot. The rest then attacked Nyburg, and speared and killed him. They then rushed the store and looted the place of everything, including arms, ammunition, and LIOO in gold. They afterwards burned the buildiDg to the ground. The body of Nyburg was afterwards found with five spear wounds in it, and it was buried on the island. H. M.S. Rapid is now on her way to the group, and will doubtless be commissioned to investigate the affair.

A sensational story comes from the South Sea Islands by the trading steamer Archer, which arrived at Sydney yesterday. While the steamer was at the Marshall Islands a trading vessel arrived with news of the

seizure of the trading schooner Poi and arrest of two Belgians on the charge of murdering the crew. The arrest was effected at the island of Ponope, one of the Caroline Group, on the information of one of the crew. His story was to the effect that tile Pot left Tahiti for a trading cruise, and had not been long at sea when a munity broke out. The captain and supercargo were shot, and several other members of the crew were poisoned, leaving the two Belgians and & half caste on board. The Belgians then altered the vessel's name, and sailed her amongst the islands on a trading cruise. Eventually they put in &t Ponope, in the Caroline Group, where the half caste, whose life had loDg been threatened, got ashore and gave information to the Governor, who is a Spaniard. The schooner was promply seized, and the Belgians were arrested by the Spanish soldiers after much resistance. The two Belgians, heavily chained, were removed to prison, and afterwards sent in a mac-of-war to Manilla for trial. The vessel Poi is a fore-and-aft schooner of forty five tons, American built. She had on board 3 500dol in cash, 5 OOOdoi worth of trade, and fifteen tons of pearl shells.