AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 575, 25 April 1873, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

The Sydney Goverumopt have voted the sum of 50,600k for immigration purposes. Tho reefs at Sandhurst continue to yield well, good dividends are being declared by many of tho Companies. Tho English and Scottish Bank are airanging to open a branch at Port Darwin. The late miners’ strike at Pleasant Creek is at an end. Most of the reefs in the district are doing very well. * The wet season at Port Darwin is over. Latest telegrams state that great activity prevails in mining, all surplus labor being absorbed. The stone in all the claims is reported to be improving, and small parcels of alluvial arriving" at Palmerston Daily Another discussion tookjplaoe in the Supreme Court, Melbourne on the 10th iristant with regard to the sentences to be passed on Mount and Morris, convicted of “manslaughter on board the brig Carl in the South Seas. The question was debated on the special case reserved by the Chief Justice, and it was still further complicated by a doubt suggested that the Chief Justice had no power to state the case, no powers to ask tho advice of tho Court, as the difficulty was not one that had arisen at. tho trial. This subsidiary point was raised? because it was supposed that if there was no power to reserve the case, the Court had no power to direct sentence to bo passed on the pri soners, and that sentence could only be passed by the judge who tried tho case. The main point was whether tire Court could pass a sentence of penal servitude for life or seven years, or was limited to inflicting a sentence of four years’ hard labour or a lino. The Court resowed its decision. Felix Kahat, share speculator, has been recently charged at the Melbourne Police Court for feloniously altering a Biff of Exchange. There are numerous other charges of the kind against him. It is stated that Kahat ia involved to the amount of nearly 50,000k With respect to the above the Australasian says —“ Tho affairs of Felix Kahat, the share speculator now charged with forgery, have painfully engrossed attention. It is quite premature to assume his guilt. For a long time past ho has not been in good credit amongst persons daily engaged in the share business. He was a toehold and too dangerous speculator. Not a little sympathy is felt and expressed for bis brother, the able and indefatigable police-officer, to whom the mere making of such a charge against his relation must bo most painful.” The charge of forgery against “Re Kish, who some years ago, held the position of secretary for railways, was -recently brought before the Collingwood Police Court. The prisoner was accused, on the information of Peter Kiall, of the Shepherd’s Arms Hotel, Collingwood, with having uttered a forged cheque for 2k purporting to bear tho .signature of Mr. Gemmell Auctioneer. There wore three other cases of tlio same nature against him. All the cheque purported to bear tho signature of Genujrell. When the case was called on the prosecutors did not appear, hut as they were in the vicinity of tho Court, they were called in, and they then intimated that they declined to proceutc: The Bench discharged the prisoner. Sir George F. Bowen is not disposed to seclude himself “from the general public. An announcement in tlio Govermmnt Gazelle notifies that on every Thursday, from one to three p.m., ho will ho happy to receive, at the Treasury, any person desirous of seeing him If the business be urgent, or gentlemen from tho country wish an interview withhim, ho will receive visitors on any day or at any hour ho may happen to ho in town. The is quite a rush for land on the Wimmcra just not, the Araml Advcrtisev says, and those who are coming forward to select in a honafxdc. manner appear to ho of quite a super lorsort. There has'been less of tho Teutonic element of late than was observed at first. The Celtic race is largelyrepresented, not a few of these being of the fair sex, who doubtless contemplate matrimony as soon as the preliminaries with adjoining vested interests arc arranged. Since the sitting of the land hoard, a largo area of land has been selected on Kcwcll and elsewhere. So far [as settlement promises now, the tow n of Horsham should soon grow in importance. As it is probable those who now occupy the soil will devote their attention to tho raising of sheep rather than to agriculture, the influence of the seasons is not likely to have so disastrous an effect as it had some years ago. The exceptional nature of tho last two seasons has contributed in no small degree to settle this part of the country. Bird, the pedestrian, has got into fresh troubhs. He was tho defendant in an action for debt, at Mount Gambior, recently. An unpleasant fact was brought out in the evidence ; sixty-six feet tape which ho borrowed for tlio purpose of measuring the distances to bo run in Adelaide was returned short. One yard bad boon cut out between the fifteenth and eighteenth feet, and sewed in again, and the alteration made a difference of two inches. Tho plaintiff, Humphries, said; — Bird, when asked about it, said ho cut it, and gave as his reason fordoing so, that bo measured tho ground in distances of tw-onty yards at a time, and by cutting out one yard whore bo did, and splicing tho remainder, ho could gain one yard in every twenty in tho running. Bird said (and witness could prove it, were ho in Adelaide) that his wife spliced the cut tape when she was in her’. Tho Bonier Watch points out that .the effect in the mcauring would ho to shorten the great eleven mile race by three-fifths of [a mile, and make the public believe that Bird had run eleven wiles when ho had not completed more than ton miles and two-fifths of a mile. Bird’s ovly explanation was as follows :—“Tic tape was broken in measuring, a course—it was not cut. Tho course when it broke was j being measured by defendant and his trainer, a nan named Miller.