Australian News.

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 14, 16 February 1870, Page 7

Australian News.

We understand that the long-promised I temperance tale, “ Emily Graham, or the i Dawning of Light," written by a Ballarat j authoress, is now passing through the j press, and will shortly appear. The new ' book will be of crown octavo size, and 1 comprise some 400 pages.— Star. 1-iKA. very melancholy event is recorded by mjj Bendigo Advertiser. - On the 10th ult. | pome boys were bathing in the dam of the | Telegraph Company, when one of them {sank In deep water. The father of the lad, hearing of the occurrence, rushed frantically to the dam, and dived in search of the body. He succeeded in bringing it to the bank, but was almost exhausted. The boy was found to be quite dead, and the I poor father himself, op being taken home, | died soon afterwards,. 5 The Rockhampton Argils records that a man in the employment of Oapt, Hunter, | named James Bohan, while exploring on ; the beach north of Emu-park, came upon I a natural curiosity in the shape of a pure »spring of fresh water bubbling up through |a rock in the sea, Bohan, accompanied |by two black boys from Rockhampton, I went round the hill and got on the beach, |On approaching the cliff side of the bald Jhill they were surrounded by a mob of labout fifty or sixty blacks, armed with I spears and nulla-nullas. Bohan carried a igun, but did not wish to show fight. The : blacks took his belt and a bottle of gingerj beer, which was stiffened with two or three glasses of gin. They would not drink out ; of the bottle until they saw Bohan take a 1 pull; they emptied it quickly then, one of ithem remarking—“ You greedy white 'fellow." They then, to make some return |for the gin, took Bohan to a rock out in |the sea, about 15ft high. From near the I top of this a clear stream of water trickled ‘j to a well at its foot. They filled a panni- - kin. Bohan drank until he was nearly j sick—such water he hadn’t tasted since Ihe left the old country. The rock is co- | vered at high water. The blacks were hid lin the cliff, and had quite a comfortable I little hut there.

I The challenge of Harris, the champion lof Australia, to run the world for £IOO |at each of the following distances, viz., 3100 yards, 500 yards, 200 yards, 300 yards, land 450 yards—or £SOO in all—has been I accepted by Frank Hewitt, the champion I runner of England. The races will take I place on the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Jon Saturday and Monday, the sth and 7th I March. | Rather strange relics are sometimes found iin the sweepings out of country tap-rooms (says the Ballarat Star), as witness the (j following;—A gentleman whom we met ■yesterday, and whose story is trustworthy, Jstated that he had been shown by the landlord of a country hotel the tip of a iman’s finger, with the nail attached, just |as it had been bitten off on the previous by a person with whom he had i ibeen fighting. It seemed that there had been a great fight, in the course of which ' the brutality we have named was perpetrated, but that immediately after the occurrence no one could find the tip of the ‘lnjured finger. The landlord had discovered it after all the rest had been unsucJcessfui, and was keeping it to send to the owner, ,|1 A case which is probably unique in court records, came before the city 'magistrates of Launceston on the 15th lilt- Mrs Coventry, the defendant, and M‘Carthy, the plaintiff, were mother end daughter, and the dispute which they ■4pame before the court to settle was as to ■which of them was the mother of a child confessedly illegitimate. It might be presumed that one tried to shift the maternity npon the other. But no : the mother said it was hers by a man named Anderson ; lind the daughter said it was hers by a man named Sams. The child was born in Launceston, and is now seven years old. Jhe facts relating to the case are most extraordinary. After a somewhat prolonged investigation, the bench concluded they had no jurisdiction. The plaintiff ■was advised to make application to the Supreme Court. , i The Maneroo Mercury relates that a servant girl was caught eavesdropping in a i Small apartment adjoining the lodge-room during a late meeting of the Freemasons Cooma. The brethren have resolved ■that she shall be made a Mason. | ; :f Young Austin, the ten-mile champion of ; Australia, has during the year 1869 performed the extraordinary feat of running A 7 races, one eighteen-mile, one ■fifteen-mile, and 20 five-mile races. Out js?. 47 ten-mile races, 44 were accomplished under the hour, the quickest being rfm in 57min. ssec. The fifteen-mile race

[as run on the Wagga Wagga race course ) Ihr, 29min. ssec. The eighteen-mile jice, at Orange, was run in Ihr. 45min. 4sec. The quickest five-mile race was xn last New Year’s Day, in 26min. 14sec. P® dl3taQ ce altogether run in 1869: k 605 hies, and the time occupied was 59hra. (min. In the Sydney papers a challenge Spears from Austin to run Bird, the lampion English runner, who is now in e,Tib surne i a race of ten miles, or twenty » fifty miles, for from £IOO to £2OO, ude. —Newcastle Chronicle,