AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

West Coast Times, Issue 2175, 19 September 1872, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

, There are only forty-five newspapers in s Victoria. A Bushman's Home has been estab- , lished in Sydney. i An Australian Quarterly Review is to i be started in Melbourne. i -Alderman O'Grady is to be the next , Mayor of Melbourne. The port " lumpers " at Adelaide have i formed a trade-union. • The manufacture of paper is to be re- : sumed at Liverpool, N.S.W. s A "National Labor Exchange" has s been opened in Melbourne. A female magician has had a very sue* ; cessful season at Adelaide. 3 The wool season has commenced in New f South Wales and Victoria, i Several fatal blasting accidents have ocl curred in New South Wales. r The municipal income of Melbourne is s very nearly £100,000 a year. i The weather in New South Wales has j been extremely bleak and unsettled. s It is proposed to establish an Australian c Academy of Music in Melbourne. ; A model lodging-house is about to be 8 erected in King-street, Melbourne.

The English Accidental Insurance Com- . any is about to open a branch in Melourne. The Age says that " housebreakers ap« 2iir id he thriving in Melbourne juSfc Ow..' 1 Miss Doll£ Gf een hds been playing tO odd houses a"t the Victoria Tlieafre,' Sydney! . » .: ; . • „.« . The coal famine in Melbourne has beeri bllowed by an almost equal scarcity of iricks. „ . , , . ' , Agriculture and the improved breeding* f stock .nte making rapid progress in i ' ' J The Leader urges that the law should 'interpose reasonable barriers to hasty narriages." The average cost to Victoria per .child )er annum at ,the Sunbury Industrial Schools, ip 10 3 . • '/■,-, j! « .Itefreeljaients,' stabling &C* for mett/bei# )f the -Victorian Parliament, cost the 1 Colony £\ 100 a-y ear. , A Q2.oz nugget w.as .found.. the .other .day. at; Humbug Hill, Inglewood. The place aught to be re-named. • ■' ■ n \ Beet augar is now being manufactured by the Victoria Sugar Beet Co., Bacchus Marsh. „The working' men of Sandridge lately raised £140 for the* Melbourne Hospital, by 'a ooncert and ball.- - .. [ Large blocks of land .supposed to cop-} tain deposits of cop jef 01$ are being" pegged dvi cri ttiSUpijef D&tlWs , • - ! Larrikinism is makins; way again in Sydney. The Herald prescribes cow-hide as a remedy for the disease. ( . Another evening paper, entitled the E%-. pvess,, is to make its ikst- appearance in Melbourne on the 16th inst. ' li s \ The (Victorian Legislative. Assernblv has, voted £3d#oti towards tag erection of the* new Government House. The Melbourne "marine stores" are declared by the Herald to be training establishments for young thieves. A yield of 150z..0f gold to the ton hag been obtained from a reef iv.the Braidwood district, owned by tt (Jhjnaman. . , , :;Sjgiiora i (Joj|r has bfceis presented $ltli -^ silver card case, containing & £50'-ncte,' by some of her Melbourne admirers. Au unsuccessful stockjobber at. Sandhurst has been obliged to give up the pencil and notebook for the pick and ahoyel. i ' JVIr.'J. M. Airey; formerly a residept in, the Western District, has- been created a Viscouut by the King of Portugal. . .., At Betidigd, a 1 riian ilaoied Pete* A'ndeta son dislocated his jaw while yawning, and had to remain with his mouth, wide open all night. A woman was imprisoned for debt in Melbourne the other day, heing the first case of the kind that has occurred there for four years. For stealing a plait of hair, value £2, a covetous Melbourne female has been sentenced to two year's and a*half of penal serMtude'^ Jj ,r , ; ;):•■ u\ •M „« 3 ,d Ha'rd*up Ealiarat mafiag'ea to' •ifymQ, £2000 iv a fortnight on opera, in addition to diamond rings and bracelets thrown on the stage in bouquets. The ratepayers of Sandridge have got up a requisition calling upon their Borough Councillors to resign, as they do nothing but wrangle. After a fierce squabble, the Melbourne City Council has decided in favor of exchanging the sites of the Eastern Market and the Melbourne Gaol. ,* A, iJriwite;.. Jeljte'r received in tlkVjatat: frorri J?o'rt Darwin mention's that iwdfopf gold were taken off the bottom of a hole at the,goldfields there. The Victorian Government have promised 'to endeavor to have engineers and engine-drivers in mines restricted by law to eight hours work daily. The Melbourne Telegraph pays- that "profligacy of the blackest .and most sickening kind comes to the surface on Monday mornings " at the City Police Court. . A private' letter received In Melbourne from England mentidns with' fefi&r'e'rie'e' td Mr Aspinall that he is "in a private asylum at Peckhaia Kye, and is getting better." The fortunate winner of some prizes recently ..offered a^ the, Theatre Roval^ Castleihairie, was compelled tp carry off a live pig, a hen tilflfrey, and a Malf-Mrtnflreft-weight of pork. A new daily paper is to be started in Sydney. The proposed capital is £60,000, which may be increased to £100,000, in shares of £1 each, and it is stated that shares to the extent of £10,255 were taken up at a preliminary meeting. The grave of a person buried in St. John's Cemeterj', Parramatta, in the year 1800, was opened a short 'time since. The coffin, which was made of blue gum, was found to be perfectly sound — not the slightest decay in any part of the wood. A lady who had her jawbone broken and three teeth knocked out in a railway collision iv Victoria) got J640 damages. A bank manager, wlio dnly got his nose bruised and' his eyes blackened in the same collision received £100 damages. • One of the finest pastoral properties in Central Queensland was recently sold* It was Cathefstonej lately owned by Mf Jodn Thome, and situated ori the Peak Downs. The sheep realised 12s and' the cattle 50s, the total purchase money amounting to £31,500. A very strong feeling (according to the Courier) is beginning to display itself in Balldrat and district against the threatened employment of " Chinese cheap labor ," on the new railways, and some navvies have been heard to say that if the contractor calls in the aid of Celestial laborers, there will be rows of no small dimensions. The Ballarat correspondent of the Argus, writing on a recent date, says ;—"; — " The pumping- engine and machinery of the City of Ballarat Company was duly started and christened this afternoon, in the presence of a small and select attendance. The affair was rather a novel one, and shows' the weak side of Ballarat a little. Instead of good old times when champagne and hock and other wines were the order of the day, the ceremony to-day was very quietly got over by the engine being christened the Good Templar, with a bottle of— of— soda- , water!" Little Bourke-street — a congregation of , abandoned women at uisjht assembled in one of the most wretched of its habitations — a drunken orgie— a quarrel — a murder — and then the locking up of the dying woman alone, to bleed to death, while the murderess and her companions go below to i finish their night's wild carousal. This (the Leader says} is the latest picture of Melbourne low hfe, and scarcely a deeper depth may be found in any city in the world. The victim was a woman of forty; the female who murdered her, a girl of twenty. Another girl shared the house with them, and the three were i partners in the wages of prostitution, and in the proceeds of any theft committed by i the men who visited them. What a commentary on our civilisation it is to reflect that this drunken orgie and horrible murder took place in a lane between, and in ; close proximity to, the Temperance and Gospel Mission Halls !

The feme of the Mudgee district for diamonds seems likely to be eclipsed. We {Sydney Morning Herald) were shown £ester.day d diamond^ said to be the largest jret discovered in $ew Soiitli Wales, which •was found by Mr Cireed, of the Fijfii Kjver,titfa freehold belonging to Peter Lendster. .ground, whicji. is reported to be h : igb,ly tariferous,' was being prospected, for gold",#Heri, at a depth of efgttt feet; the dtaMd •was panned out. Other smaller dfttitiortylft $aye since been found, and the whoje dis* round Oberon is being prospected and' (aken up. We un'deirsiiand Jthat jn the greeks is a. large quantity of.bhiek.sub{^a'nee which was at fics^ taKen tor tin,' but which has been proved by fepdatea awdyi to contain no mineral of commercial value. The auriferous and diamond drift is said to fee derived from a layer overlying the granite, and .under a capping of tertiary basalt., The diamond referred to has been Inspected by the Key> W,. B. Qlur.ks, Professor Watt, Mr & Mi Stephen, Mr Tremlow, and others, and by all pf'dnounced to be a true diamond. It is an qctahedron, and weighs over twelve and ahalf carats. The sum. of £650 has been offered for. it, and refused. , •• The M Town and^ Country, journal,'^ a" Sydney paper, dra\v3 tfie {Mowing picture of the state of farming in New Sotith Wales : — " Travel in whichever direction you will, . ruin and desolation meet your gaze .at every turn. , Deserted cottages, mansions in ruins, dilapidated barns, and #ecaye«l . faiR .buildiDgs, ere everywhere the rule. -ii'stea'V of a ; country scarcely done with pegtops and piriaforea, tbe tourist beholds a country on crutches, , tpttering on its last legs— decrepid, tattered, and forlorn. If her,e. and ,there a diferent aspect may be observed* it is exceptional, and jso rare that it renders, by contrast, the desolation doubly desolate, .l^he ruins met with are ebqftsnt wibnesses ,of ;npr'e prosperous days. Granaries and mflls 6f various capacity tell the talc of something to store, and s'omctbiug to giind, but their emptiness lind silence, their hiugelcss doors, cashless window.", moss-grown floors, smokeless chimneys, and grass-covered approaches, are melancholy tokens of^ departed triamphsj",,. •„ Rabbits have increased tt> sa'ch a)i extent in Tasmania, that they have greatiy depreciated the value of squatting property. The evil, however, is not an unmitigated one, it appears. Numbers of poor families, in the neighborhood of Campbelltown particulaily, are now making from £3 to ;54 -per week l)y the capture of the bunnies and tbe sale of their slsins for the Melbourne market. .. > „ In a lecture on " Immigration," recently delivered in Sydney by Mr Jordan, he stated that during six 3 ears be had sent 36,000 • persons to Queensland — namely, 6000 navvies and cotton operatives, 12,000 full-payers, 12,000. free passengers, and 6000 assisted passengers. The amount of money raised by the assisted plan which he originated, realised £54,000 /luring six years, ft^yina all tbe expenses of the | Queensland office, s#la"ry $f .^gent-General, | and all other expenses of his mission', sfn'd bringing in a revenue as well of £3000 a year.

foot Caraway seeds, 2a 6d per cubic foot Carriages, carts, drays, and waggons, ad valorem, 5 per cent Carnage and cart wheels 5s per pair