AUSTRALIA..

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 59, 9 February 1877, Page 3

AUSTRALIA..

Sydney, February 6. Mr. Baker has accepted the Portfolio of the Minister for Lands. Nothing except mails and passengers is saved from the wreck of the steamer Singapore. February 7. The Gold Cup weights are declared. The six highest are—Sunlight, Sterling, Malton, Imperial, Pride of the Hills, and Valentine. Melbourne, February 6. Sailed —Kingarooma, with the New Zealand Suez mails. February 7. A deficiency of £3000 has been discovered in the accounts of the Secretary of a suburban building society. (Per Arawata, via Bluff ) Mr Berry has been ruralising, and, it is said, maturing a policy in company with his most trusted henchmen, but the principal policy of the Opposition will be war to the knife against Sir J. M'Culloch. The public house question is just now the prominent one of the hour. Every Sunday the public-houses in the city and suburbs are religiously closed. A case of attempted murder and suicide, similar to that which recently occurred at Emerald Hill, has occurred in Collingwood. A married woman, named Dicker, cut her husband's throat while he slept, and then cut her own. Neither are seriously injured. There is a prospect of the Torres Strait mail steamers ceasing to run. The contract, which is only £20,000 a year, does not pay them.