AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2132, 7 March 1870, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

The Tasmanian Salmon Commissioners are preparing regulations for a partial experiment in opening the Derwent for salmon, fishing. At Geelong, on the 19th ult. Bird won the mi'e flat race; time, 4min. 47sec. The four-mile walking race was won by Woodhouse. Topley started lame. At Sandhurst the mile race was carried off by Bird with the greatest ease, and Topley won the walking race by a foot, Lyall, who received 130 yards start, being second ; time, 34min. At Maryborough, Bird won the mile race in a trot, and for the walking match there were fire competitors, Topley at scratch and Lyall 90 yards start. From the first it was between Topley and Lyall; the former win. ning by a yard. Time, 35min 7sec. Speaking of the approaching match between Harris and Hewett for LSOO aside, the Australasian says that the fourth deposit of LI 00 aside has been made. Both men are well. Hewitt having recovered from his sprain has been doing work, and Harris is in capital trim so that there is every probability of both men being fit and well on the day. The backers of each are very confident of success, and the betting is abouLeven ;;(if either has the call it is Harris. In addition to the increased supply of diamonds now being received from the Australian Diamond Mines Company, Messrs Clarke and Co. report having received 164 diamonds this week from the valley of the Cudgetong River These stones are quite up to the average for brilliancy and purity. The Bishop of Melbourne laid, in the presence of a numerous assemblage, the memorial stone of the first college that is affiliated to the University. Tire University of Melbourne is necessarily wholly secular, but provision was made at its foundation for the establishment, in connection with it, of denominational colleges. Up to the present time no such colleges have been founded, but the urgent want that existed for proper supervision of students sent from remote parts of the country to Melbourne, and also of some kind of divinity school for the Church of England, led to this undertaking. It is not improbable that other religious bodies will soon follow this good example. Mr and Mrs Charles Mathews are by this time far on their journey to our shores, which they will reach, all things being favorable, by the mail steamer, timed to arrive here on the 17th of March next. The announcement of their intended visit through the columns of several London journals was at first either not credited or received with derision. The actual truth of the rumor, however, was furnished by Mr Charles Mathews himself in a speech made on the occasion of his farewell benefit at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, on the 26th of November last. His address was character, istic, and after furnishing his audience with a number of reasons which they might pos. sibly surmise for his notified prolonged absence from Great Britain, he gradually Jed them into the secret, “You must know,

then, said Mr Mathews, that every year when I take my couple of months’ holidays, I make my little trip abroad, and much as I hate the sea, brave the terrors of the awful voyage from Dover to Calais, in order to air myself in Switzerland and Italy. Well, this year I am going to vary my programme, and am about to make a little pleasure trip—where do you think? —to Australia. Now the secret’s out! In January next I sail for Melbourne, and instead of a little outing of a couple of months, contemplate a gigantic one of perhaps a couple of years, including a voyage even more awful than that from Dover to Calais—for though I go what is called ‘ overland,’ that’s only a myth, the ‘ oversea ’ occupying nearly two months, and the ‘ overland ’ not occupying more than two hours. (inly a ha’porth of ‘ bread ’to all that ‘ sack.’ Yes, lam going to treat my wife to a little pleasure excursion to the antipodes. I have had so many very pressing invitations from our brethren on the other aide of the globe, that I have at last yielded to the temptation, and have no doubt they will receive me kindly and hospitably, ami send me back with plenty of good colonial produce in my pockets. Fancy me at the antipodes ! Why, I shan’t bo able to tell whether 1 am standing on my head or my heels. However, 1 must try and preserve my equilibrium there, and trust I may come back to you again right side uppermost.”