AUSTRALIAN.

Waipawa Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 782, 28 May 1885, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN.

(PER CITY OF SYDNEY AT AUCKLAND.) Sydney, May 21. The contingent is expected to return about the 12th June, when a grand parade of all forces will be held. The strength of the permanent force now amounts to a little over four hundred and fifty men, aud the total defence force including the reserves and all branches of service, to something like ten thousand men. The water supply question still absorbs much attention. The weather continues fine and dry, and the supply in the dams is fast decreasing, already the city aud suburbs are placed on strictly intermittent aud means are being devised to bring water by pipes from Scarborough Park or some other locality. Typhoid is not decreasing, the circumstances being against it. THE “ LIBERATOR.” Some time ago the secularist paper the Liberator was banished by the committee from the reading-room of tho School of Arts, the paper in question reflected in gross terms upon the Queen, which Judge Murdeyer describes «s a series of coarse, brutal, and jufamous libels. The secularists last night asserted that they were true. Mr Charles Bright moved the resolution in favor of the Liberator being retained, but the meeting by a large mnjority decided otherwise. Admiral Tryon considers our moans of defence insufficient, and that we should have in command something more than the local defence ships. ! COLLISION. A 'collision* occurred in the harbor on Tuesday night between the steamers Australian, outward bound with passengers, and the Port Jackson. The former was considerably damaged, and had to be beached. A collision also occurred in Newcastle harbor the same night. ANTICIPATED STRIKE. There is all the appearance of trouble at the Greta miae, Wallsend, and a ballot is to be taken whether the men will go out on strike or not. The boys’ dispute m the Wallsend colliery is not yet settled.