Untitled

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 211, 3 April 1868, Page 3

Prince Alfred.—The presents received by Prince Alfred during his Australian visit would form a whim-sically-curious and costly collection. He has certainly not been trammelled by the custom—rigidly observed by the royal family in England—of declining to accept gifts from subjects. On the contrary, nothing from finger-rings to aigrettes—seems to have come amiss. Emboldened by this knowledge, a Sydney hatmaker has, it seems, resolved to distinguish himself by the offering of an unique specimen of the head-dress so much admired by colonial youths and—bushrangers. The Sydney Morning Herald thus describes the article : " The vast amount of plaiting and sewing in the hat in question seems almost credible. The size is that known as 6 and 7-Bth, yet it contains two hundred -yards of sinnett or plaiting, and sixtyeight thousand stitches, and it has occupied nearly two months in making. It is lined with crimson silk, and inside is decorated with the Australian arms, and in that neat button which surmounts the crown are worked in colored silks the familiar forms of the kangaroo and emu. The color of the hat is a pale straw, and the extreme fineness and regularity of the plaiting gives it an appearance of lightness and elegance. To those qualities it Unites the valuable one of being waterproof. The material swells and closes the plaits when moisture is applied, which, when dry, .the hat freely admits air. So durable, too, is it, that if the Duke of Edinburgh, to whom it is intended to present it, be pleased to accept and wear it out, it will afford, perhaps, the most lasting memento of his visit to this country." Opinion of the Maryborough g-oiid-field bt returned diggers. —The Braidwood Dispatch, of 2nd instant, says:—" During the past week several parties have returned from the new diggings at Maryborough, after a sojourn up there of a month. The cry is the same from all those who have been up there. The diggings are completely overdone, there being thousands of men up th«re who cannot find any ground that will yield more than the bare colour of gold, and

who would gladly get away if they had the means. From what we can hear this rush will prove a second (but of a far more extensive nature)ofthe Port Curtis bubble. There has been a little patch of good ground hit upon by the first discoverers, a share of which was obtained by a few of the first arrivals; and the private letters of these few parties to their friends in the different parts of the colony, detailing in such glowing terms the result of their labours, and the prospects that awaited others who would lose no time in joining them, has led to such amongst the mining community as has not been known for many a day. Instead of the rich ground holding on as was expected however, those who have rushed off with such haste to obtain their slice of luck, in all instances at considerable pecuniary sacrifice, after sinking hole after hole, and prospecting in all directions, find that they can barely make their 'tucker.'"