VICTORIA.

Evening Post, Issue 28, 11 March 1865, Page 3

VICTORIA.

The accounts from Melbourne state that the destruction of property in the hot wind and fir as of the 27th February and the preceding days has been very great. At Castlemalne, the whole country on either side of the railway from Tarradale to Moonlight Flat and the Mount was in a complete blaze. The properly of Mr. Hull, C.E., has been completely destroyed ; Mr. Urquhart's place narrowly escaped, Messrs. Dainty and White have been considerable losers, and a Mr. Thomas lost a child supposed to be burned in the flames. A valuable race horse was also killed. Kyneton, Newstead, Sandhurst, Learmonth, and Geelong had also suffered considerable loss. The surrounding country seemed one sheet of fire, and hundreds of acres were still burning when the steamer left «, miles of the couutry presenting a face of continued fire, with the flame cteeping up Spitting forth from the top of the forest trees, reminding looker* on more of a raging volcano than of an ordinary bush fire. The sentence of death passed upon Mary Malone, at the last Criminal Sittings, for the murder of her infant child, has been commuted by the Executive Council to that of ten years' imprisonment. This decision was arrived at on Monday afternoon, and was at once communicated to the convict. .' A gig accident occured yesterday after' noon, on the Bydney-road, neat' the new Cemetery. As the Rev. 0. O'Hea was bdng driven Into town from Pentridge, in conse. qnence of his horse shying, the wheel of the "vehicle came in contact with that of a spring cart which was passing in the opposite direction, containing some women and children) and the wheels becoming locked, a general overturn was the result. Mr. O'Hea received a severe shaking, and his servant, Patrick Flattery, sustained some injuries to the leg so serious as to necessitate his removal to the hospital. The occupants of the other vehicle were unhurt. According to a statement in reference to the Van Yean, made by the hon. the Minister of Mines in the Legislative Assembly, last evening, the quantity of water consumed In Melbourne and the suburbs every twentyfour hours is 9,750,000 gallons, being at the rate of ninety gallons, per head per diem, or a larger consumption per head than takes place in any other city of the world, save Rome, New York, and Marseilles. A petition from Mr Thomas Etffliling, o F Fitzroy, has been presented to the Legislative Assembly, praying for such an amendment of the Coroners Law Consolidation Bill as will place election of those officers in the hands of the freeholders.