AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume 1, Issue 52, 9 November 1870, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Melbourne, Oct. 17. Mr M'Pherson has been elected Mayor of Melbourne. The Germans sent home £1,300 by the mail steamer, in aid of the sick and wounded in the war; about an equal amount went from the yther colonies. The mail steamer took upwards of £500,000 in gold and specie from Melbourne. Reindeer won the Hunt Club Cup. Waraior and Croydon are great favourites for the Melbourne Cup, and are backed at 6 to 1. Supple will be tried again ; this time for shooting at Or. P. Smith. He is determined to defend himself. A shocking murder has been committed at Karabeal, near Hamilton, Victoria. Two Germans, named respectively Pees and Zimmerman, who were hitherto the best of friends, were drinking together. Pees, after both were drunk, bolted with a bottle of whisky, which had been paid for by Zimmerman, and drank it all. Zimmerman followed the man, who by this time was too drunk to offer any resistance, and beat him to death with a stick. Zimmerman was also too drunk to knosv what he was doing. An inquest was held on the 20th of October, when the jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against Zimmerman. A man and his wife named Proctor poisoned themselves in Ballarat East, on the 18th October, under the following circumstances:—The wife received a letter from a man in New Zealand, and the husband then accused the wife of infidelity. After a great deal of squabbling, they both agreed to take strychnine, and took it accordingly. The wife is dead, but tho husband is now recovering under medical treatment. October 27. Jones, for child murder at Sandridge, has been sentenced to death. The Spring Race Meeting has been postponed for a week, the course being unfit to run upon. Sydney, Oct. 17. Mr Egan, Postmaster-General, died suddenly y ester-night. Mr Henry Parkes has filed his sbhedule. His liabilities amount to £36,000, and his assets are stated at £13,000. He has resigned his seat in the Legislative Assembly, but his friends intend to re-elect him. Prince Alfred leaves on Wednesday, Oct. 19, for Melbourne. Adelaide, Oct. 17. Parliament has passed the Port Darwin Telegraph Bill, binding the colony to finish the overland line to Port Augusta by the end of December, 1871. A copy of the Act was sent home by the mail, to satisfy the English Company, who expect to land their cable by the date fixed for the completion of the overland line. Melbourne is thus likely to be in a position to wish London " A Happy New Year " in 1872. v

The First Viotorian Newspaper. —o — We Lave been favoured with the perusal of a lithographed J'aC'Simile of The Mel" bourne Advertiser, the first newspaper ever published in Victoria. This pioneer of the Melbourne Press was " written for and published by John P. Fawkner," and the second number—the one now under notice—was dated Monday, Bth January, 1838. It was written on a sheets '4 foolscap, and, judging from the number of advertisements it contained, must have been a paying speculation. As appears by an advertisement, " Fawkner's Hotel" was the first established in Molbourn« ; and the proprietor seems to have been in business as timber merchant, dealer in stock, (fee, (&c. New Zealand does ,not seem to have been altogether unknowi/'to the denizens of the city in embryo, as the following advertisement will show : "On sale, a quantity of superior New Zetland pine, in Logs and in Flooring Boartls. —Apply to Mr Horatio Cooper, Melbourne : or to Mr Hugh M'Lean, Willianistown." In the " Poets' Corner" we find this " Ode to Beauty :" Oh ! what a pure and sacred thing Is Beauty, curtained from the sight Of the gross world—illumining Only one mansion with her light. Unseen by man's disturbing eye, The flower that blooms beneath the sea, Too deep for sunbeams, doth not lie Hid in more chaste obscurity." The chief item of news is the following account of

" The Murder oy Constable Tomkins." The bushranger Cummerford having given information that one Dugnall had murdered six bushrangers between Port Phillip ami Portland Bay, the Governor-iu-Uhief—Sir U. Bourke sent Omnnierford to Port Phillip to point out where this act had been perpetrated. In accordance with these orders, \V. Lonsdale, Esq., P.M. here, sent Cummerford under charge of a sergeant, one soldier, and two constables, in the proposed direction. (Jummerford did guide this party to where he himself, a .shoemaker (name unknown), and Dugnali had, as he stated, murdered in cold blood, and while sleeping, six human beings. The party declare that they found from one to two bushels of human bones calcined. Some human teeth and also hair was found unburnt, and a quantity of shoe-nails and buttons from the clothes of the murdered men. This was about 210 miles from Melbourne. On the way home they fell in with and brought the hone of a horse's head, said to be Mr Kbden'n, which was shot by llugnall and Ciumuerford on their way home. One constable and the soldier turned back for some tea left behind, and the sergeant, Tomkins, and prisoner came, honn?wards. They stopped to cook before these men returned, and the sergeant gave his musket to Tomkins while he made a tire. Tomkins, it does appear, culpably left the firearms, and the prisoner seized the musket and shot Tomkins so that he died within three hours. The ball, it appeared, entered his left side, anil came out at the right breast, and cut diagonally across the right forearm to the bone. This coldblooded wretch plundered the packhorses, and linally escaped, though pursued by the sergeant for some time. This took place on the Saturday, the 30th December. On January 1, he was taken by three of Mr W. Wedge's men after having plundered [here the writing is illegible] of a double-barrelled gun, he wished to get a horse, and threatened the lives of several of the principal graziers of this district, lie was taken while trying to get a horse. Cummerford is a light, well-made youth, about nineteen ; he has rather a prepossessing look, and very mild voice, small fine neck, and remarkably large upper head ; the lower part is very small, and the chin recedes towards the neck so as to make a very strange appearance when looked closely into. We trust that the three men who prevented the atrocities meditated by this brutal wretch, will receive their free and unconditional pardons. For we, in common with many of our fellow colonists, hold that incentive is in such cases the best preventive. We have omitted much for want of space.