AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 585, 4 July 1873, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

—o There are 89 nominations for tlio Melbourne Cup of 1873, being twenty more tlian any year previously for the same race. By cablegram the following is the result for the grand race of France—the “ Grand Prix de Paris,” —Mr. Delamarre’s Boiard, 1; Mr. LcfeVre’s Flageolet, 2; arid Mr. Merry’s Doncaster. 3. It is stated on good authority that an English Eleven Cricketers will visit the Colonies during the next season. Arrangements are now being maf'e with the celebrated Mr. Grace. Mining matters at Ballarat and Sandhurst are quiet, but at Creswick and Pleasant Creek, things are looking very brisk. At the former, the alluvial workings are turning out splendidly, and at the litter, what from new discoveries and the steady yield from old claims, great interest is felt by all classes. The Bank of New South Wales at Gympie has been robbed of 9JJf. Mary Lewis, a miner’s wife at Newcastle, recently decapitated her child, and then attempted suicide. She is not likely to recover. Sir George F. Bowen, in replying to the toast of his health at Chines, said ho was ranch struck with the variety of tunes which wore played when his health was drunk. Here it was the “ Old English Gentleman;” P.t Bal'arat it was ‘‘For he was a jolly good follow.” When he was Governor of New Zealand, where, as the company no doubt know, the Macries indulged in disagreeable practices, the tune was always, “The K'tig of the Cannibal Islands.” (Laughter.) “A point of importance,” says the Ballarat Star, “aiose the other day in a case before the Smythesdale Bench. A man was summoned for the maintenance of two step-children whose mother had died, and his defence was that, the mother being dead, he was no longer liable for the maintenance of the children. The defence is, prhna (jaqei, inhuman, but it may be good law. With a view to determine this the case has been remanded.” A sagacious dog is Written of as follows by the Daylesford Mercury:—' 1 Mr. John Cardan, who resides near Blanket Flat, is the owner of a Valuable dog. The sagacious animal, which in breed is a cross between a terrier and a sheep dog, is daily in the habit of accompanying the children to school, a distance of some three miles. When he has seen them safely there he returns to his master’s house to await the hour of dismissal, and then he is off again to the school for bis charge. The same animal is an inveterate hater of vermin, as he killed no less than 14 snakes during last season.