NEW SOUTH WALES.

West Coast Times, Issue 148, 9 March 1866, Page 2

NEW SOUTH WALES.

Mail Robbery. — The sticking-up of the Peak Downs mail by Macpherson, alias the " Wild Scotchman," formed, the subject of information that reached town by Mr H. Cooper, of Talgai Station, Clermont. It appears that Mr Cooper, when coming along the Springsure road to Rockhampton, met a foot traveller near Springton, and the man told him that he had seen the Wild Scotchman, who had stuckup the mail going to Peak Downs. Mr Cooper questioned the man, and he made a statement to the effect, that on Wednes - day morning last he was coming along the Clermont-road to Rockhampton, when he met t]ie mailman carrying the up-mail. Shortly afterwards he met a man riding a roan horse and leading a chesnut horse. The man on horseback asked how far the mailman was ahead, and the pedestrian thinking that he was travelling in company with the mailman , told him he had passed him but a short time before.. The man rode on, and the foot traveller continued his journey to town. He walked ten miles farther " on, and camped by a creek. While'hewas having his tea, the man who was leading the two horses came up to him, hobbled his horses out, and joined him in tea. He then informed his entertainer that he was the Wild Scotchman, and intended robbing the down mail from the Peak Downs, only he was a little too late ; that, having missed the down mail he had stnek up the up mail. He then pulled from his horse's back a new saddle-bag, which our informant thinks bore the name of Cooroorah (Messrs. Headrick, Livermore, and Co. 's station). He took a lot of opened letters from a bag, and threw them .into the camp fire. He threw a draft on the Union Bank for £15 over to the pedestrian, telling him to take it, and also gave him two half sovereigns as a present. He camped there the whole night, breakfasted next morning, and rode back in the direction from whence he came. The traveller is on his way to Rockhampton with tho draft in his pocket, and intends returning it to the bank on reaching town, Jfc np» Bpan8 pan also that, a night or two preceding

wayman visited Mr Beattie's public-house, at Gainsford, where a number of men were camped, engaged in splitting timber for fencing ; that he stole two norses from them, and two or three pairs of new boots from the store. — Sydney Morning Herald Feb. 22. ' J A Valuable Hobsb Killed ny a Snake. —On Saturday last, Mr William Zuill's valuable entire horse Champion died from the effect of a snake bite at Bedford. It appearsthat on the morning of Saturday he was eating hay in Mr Zuill's stable He was, later in the day, observed to become very drowsy, and it was suspected that he had been bitten by a snake. About sume. in the evening the horse died, and, upon examination, the punctures of a snake bite were plainly discernable upon his hip. A son of Mr Zuill's searched the stable, and there found and killed a small black snake about fifteen inches long. Champion was a valuable horse, worth, as we are informed, upwards of £100.-— Maitldnd Mercury.

to L 2 10s per week.