AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 705, 1 September 1870, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

A number of ladies and gentlemen! who thought that the Mayoress should I actively participate to some extent in 1 the acknowledgments made to the! Mayor of a sense of his generous | hospitality, joined in subscribing about] £SO, for the purpose of having a piece of jewellery made for presenta-j tion to Mrs Amess. The form chosen | was a buckle and strap bracelet of] pure gold, set with brilliants, and thel order was handsomely executed by! Messrs Kilpatrick and Co., Collins-! street. Inside the bracelet was in-1 scribed the words " Presented to Mrs! S. Amess on the occpsion of the open-1 ing of the new Town-hall by a few] lady friends, at Melbourne, 9th] August, 1870" The presentation was made by Mr Masterton, on Thursday, in the Mayor's private room, at the new building, in the presence of between twenty and thirty ladies, and a' few gentlemen, and the Mayoress re-i turned thanks in a few words. Mrs Amess also received a present last week, in a private manner, from Messrs Walsh Brothers, jewellers, in Collins-street, who had long known Mr Amess and his family, and wished to give expression to their personal appreciation of his character. The article was a gold bouquet-holder, of the usual form, bearing medallions of the Town Hall, city arms, and monograms of the Mayoress. The handle was enriched with leaves of the fern tree, and bore the inscription, " Souvenir of the; 9th August, 1870." Messrs Walsh sent the bonquet-holder to Mr Amess'g private house, and there was no formal presentation. Adelaide was shocked on Saturday morning by the announcement of a very sudden death—that of Mr J. T. Bagot, late Chief Secretary and member of the Legislative Council. It occurred about midnight, after an illness of less than an hour's duration. Mr Bagot's brother, who lived next door, to him, was called about eleven o'clock, and on going in found him sitting on the stair, breathing very heavily, as if suffocating. He was greatly excited, and implored to be left alone, as he was dying. After being put to bed he gradually became unconscious, and the beating of his heart was preceptible only at long intervals. Soon after midnight the doctor pronounced him dead. Mr Bagot had, latterly, been very unfortunate in his private affairs, which had necessitated the resignation of his seat in the Council. The first impression made by the news of his death was that other than natural causes had been at work. The inquest, however, dispelled all such suspicions, for the medical evidence proved that he was constitutionally asthmatic, that he had been liable to severe bronchial attacks, and these had ended in congestion of the lungs. The fune. ral took place on Sunday. A distressing case of suicide was discovered on the 13th instant, at the Melbourne Club Hotel, corner of Stephen and Little Bourke-streets. Mr Phillip Francis Gould Barry, a newspaper reporter, has been stopping at the hotel for the last fortnight, during which time he has been drinking heavily, and on Thursday morning, at ten o'clock, he went into his room and did not come out again. Mr Barry often remained for a lengthened time in his room, and consequently no notice was taken of his long retirement till yesterday morning, about half-past eleven o'clock, when the landlord, suspecting that something was wrong, gave information to the police, who forced open the door, when Mr Barry was found dead in his bed. He had apparently been dead some time, the body being quite cold and rigid, and a paper marked " Arsenic, poison," was found in his pocket. Some sediment was found in a glass at hand, and .a paper referring to family troubles was also discovered. Deceased, who was about thirty-nine years of age, was a well-educated and well-read man, and had been connected with the press as reporter and writer in Tasmania and Victoria since his arrival in this part of the world, about sixteen years ago. He was a native of Cork, and was a student at Trinity College, Dublin. He was endowed with a considerable amount of natural talent of a literary order, and published in Hobart Town, about five years ago, a book of" Christmas Verses," principally descriptive of Australian customs and modes of thought in reference to Christmastide. He was one of the promoters of a weekly literary journal called "My Note Book," which was started about 1857, and some ten years since he occupied the post of editor of the " Ovens Constitution." Some seven years ago ho was connected with the " Hobart Town Mercury." He had taken within the last few years to drinking heavily at intervals, and no doubt his reason had temporarily given way after a proloured fit of intemperance when he committed self-destruction. He was engaged on the Melbourne press up to within a few weeks of his death. He leaves a wife and two children.

The Road Steameb. what is said of Thompson's road be true, it must be regarded as an immense success. " Chamber's Journal " has the following recommendatory notice of the invention: A locomotive to run on common roads has long been wanted, and now the desideratum appears to bo supplied by the road steamer invented by Mr li. W. Thompson, civil engineer, of Edinburgh, who has overcome the difficulties that baffled other inventors by a very simple means. He mounts his engine on broad wheels, the tires of which are covered with a thick hoop of india-rubber ; and, thus mounted, it will run anywhere, along roads or lanes, across meadows, ploughed fields, or on sandy shores of the sea. It runs, too, so lightly as to leave no deep ruts behind. It will draw two double ploughs by direct draught, and, by making four furrows at once, will plough a field speedily, will turn sharp corners; can be guided easily along narrow streets ; and is altogether so efficient, that the question of cheap transport of heavy loads, and the feeding of railways from outlying rural districts, would appear to be solved. "With this and the Fairlie locomotive for narrow tramways, all civilised countries may supply their travelling requirements at a moderate rate. There is a story of an Irish newspaper editor who, being left without assistance in a busy time found himself unable to cope with all the intelligence—late, later, latest—that flowed in upon him ; so that towards four in the morning he wound up his night's work by penning a note extraordinary in these words : —" Owing to a most unusual pressure of matter, we are compelled to leave several of our columns blank."