AUSTRALIA.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVII, Issue 3382, 30 December 1871, Page 3

AUSTRALIA.

The " Age" expects lawyers soon to become as plentiful in Victoria as are colonels and captains in the United States. The Melbourne University Council have refused to allow ladies who have passed the tnatriculation examination to attend the lectures. The falling off in the wool clip of Tasmania last year was nearly a million and a half pounds weight, owing chiefly to the enormous increase of rabbits. The shareholders of the Warrnambool Meat Preserving Company bave resolved to wind up the concern. At Geelong a Mrs Williams, who was staying in a hotel there, fell through the floor of one of the rooms into a jewellers shop below. Things in Tasmauia are in such a depressed state that the very thieves are reported to be leaving the colony. Several more deaths both of men and animals, by lightning, have occurred in Victoria. The Sunday train question is now agitating the minds of the Victorian public. The Victorian Government are going to import from home a supply of rifles and ammunition of the latest approved pattern for the use of the volunteers. The Bendigo Water Works ore about to passinlothe hands of the City Council of Sandhurst. At the last licensing meeting at Geelong not a single grocer applied for the renewal of his bottle license. A Geelong solicitor, named Maley, having been convicted of forgery, has been struck off the rolls. A mining company at Abergeldy sv&shed up the other daj r , the grand result being 3oz 4dwt of gold. Victoria boasts of one teetotal pub lican. He keeps a publichouse near the County Court, Melbourne. Fruit is very cheap in Victoria this season, and vegetables are being sold for " next to nothing." A Sydney paper urges that China is a more promising market for preserved meat than England. A sheep, 18 months old, shorn at Moorak, S.A , yielded a " beautifully silky" fleece, weighing 231bs. It was not shorn as a lamb. Small insolvencies have been very numerous iv Sydney of late.

A number of vessel?, employing between 200 and 800 men, are engaged in pearl fishing in Torres Straits. One had on board £7000 worth of beclie Ac mer alone. During the 14 years that responsible Government has existed in South Australia, the average annual cost to the colony for elections has J been £4547. Thistles are so plentiful in Victoria just now that the roads aye everywhere nearly blocked up by them. The thermometer registered 110 degrees in the shade at Greenfel), N.S.W. A co-operative company for the manufacture and export of butter is being formed at Kyneton. The capital is £1000, in £1 shares. Caterpillars are ravaging some districts of Tasmania. A policeman was taken ill the other day in the Sydney Police Court, and died the same evening. The weather in South Australia is warm and favorable for the harvestoperations. The German Turn Verein in Melbourne have erected a fine new hall, built of bluestone. Canon Stephen, of Sydney, has retired from his clerical duties, owing to ill-health. The new lunatic asylum at K>w, Melbourne, is now out of the builder's hands. Its total cost will be about £150,000. A wild man is reported to have been seen in the Jingera Ranges, N.S.W. A hare, half devoured, has been found in a hawk's nest, near Batesford, Victoria. The much-dreaded vine disease has appeared in the neighborhood of Melbourne, which has hitherto been exempt from its attacks. A mild form of the foot and-mouth disease has appeared among some cattle recently landed at Sydney from England. At Albury, N.S.W., a man was fined £5, with tho alternative of two months' imprisonment in default, " for using disgracefully insulting language about her Majesty the Queen." Large numbers of pilchards have made their appearance in Hobson's Bay. A little girl has been burned to death at Hotspur, Victoria, by the explosion of a kerosene tin. Her sister caused the explosion by putting a light to the spigot to find out how far the tin was from being full. A concert in aid of the funds of the Orphan Asylum was given in the Melbourne Town Hall on tho 11th inst by nearly 1000 children from various public schools in the city and suburbs, and proved a success. At Pleasant Creek a miner put his lighted pipe into one of his pockets, which was full of gun-cotton. An explosion ensued, by which he was seriously injured. The Presbyterian Sunday School teachers in Melbourne have resolved to present Captain Fraser, of the mission schooner Dayspring, with a purse of sovereigns. A drunken tailor was nearly drowned in a gutter in Elizabeth-street, Mcl bourne, during a recent thunderstorm. The New Guinea prospecting expedition was to leave Sydney on the 20th inst. The Government declined to sub sidise it.