GENERAL SUMMARY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3013, 21 February 1881, Page 3

GENERAL SUMMARY.

Sydney, February 15. The immigration agent has teen instructed not to receive deposits on account of assisted immigrants pending the consideration of the whole question in the Assembly. Recent excavations have exposed the foundation of the great-hall of the Town Hall, which are of a disgraceful character, In places the stones are as if thrown into trenches, with open joints, and the masonry is overhanging the base, and not down to the rock.

The Government ask for £51,000 for the year's immigration, being a decrease of £25,000. From Wilcannia a man named Evans brought into town on the 7th 24 ounces of gold, a second two-ounce nugget, and the remainder coarse nuggetty gold. He states that himself and party obtained it in two days at a depth of from two to six feet from the surface with dishes. The diggings are about two hundred miles inland. Twenty-five miners' rights have been issued. News has been received of fresh finds in the Grey ranges, but they require authentication. Melbourne. A number of Irishmen have sent a congratulatory telegram to Mr Parnell. Brisbane. Parliament has been prorogued to March 29. An Afghan having a female camel and a young camel in his possession, has passed through Zulo, on the Paroch river. The Afghan can only speak broken English, but he is understood to have found the camel in the bush. It is supposed to have belonged to Burke and Wills expedition, and the Afghan is suspected to be a deserter from Elder's expedition. Skuthorpe, up to the present, has not permitted a single person to see the record of a single article which he alleges he has. Skuthorpe left Blackall on January 24, and nobody seems to know anything of his wherabouts.

The Government have decided to call for tenders for an alternative service from Brisbane to Normanton, and from Thursday Island to Normanton, the latter connecting the new English mail service.

A hutkeeper on the Idatnese station at Pitari Creek has been murdered by the blacks.

Tenders for a railway from Emerald to Capitla, 32 miles, were received on Saturday. The lowest tender was £1090 per mile.

A Malay proa in ballast, with nine men on board, has been picked up off Mulgrave Island, having been blown to leeward by a heavy gale, and drifted 34 days. The crew have since been landed on Thursday Island.

It is reported that the Duke of Manchester intends purchasing a Queensland station.