AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Evening Star, Issue 2813, 23 February 1872, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Some ocean racing took place between the ships Hampshire and City of Hankow, from London, and the Loch Era from Clyde to Melbourne. The London ships had a neck and neck race, the one having left Plymouth on Nov. 2d, and the Hankow having past the Lizard on the same day. The Earn left the Clyde on Nov. ‘2O, and all three, which curiously enough are Clyde built ships, arrived in Hobson’s Bay within an hour of e oh other. Eecent investigations prove the detection of fraud in the shipments of wheat. On a quantity of wheat purchased in Melbourne being jpeued, it was found that a great portion was totally unlike the samples, being useless for shipment, and only lit for fowl s Some of the messengers of the Sydney and Melbourne Telegraph, are now mounted on horseback. The Melbourne underwriters naivowly missed another exciting event, and the speculators in wrecked cargoes another opportunity of making a very profitable venture. Through an accident to the tug, the fine ship Wimmera, outward bound, was for a short time in imminent peril of going on the rocks. “ jE»les” continues to tell some good stories. 0 Here is his last. A man called his creditors together. The latter thought he was the best man to carry on the business, and offered him L7OO a-year to do so, but he declined. “ Ho couldn’t live on 1 700 a-year, and wasn’t soing to try.” The Melbourne papers wruc dolefully about the immorality of the youth of the Victorian capital, and one paper tells ns that it is the girls who form the r> al difliculty. 'I heir precocity in crime and immorality is simply astoni hiug. The Anju* asks what can be more revolting than the case of Anne Maua Pyne, a girl who had fallen and become a mother before sue was sixteen years of age, and who now awaits her trial on a charge of murdering her wretched offspring ? and says it is sorry to State that hers is not a solitary ease. Banking must be pretty profitable ip Sydney. The Commercial Bank there, at the cl se of last ha'f-year, declared a dividend at the rate of i-i per cent, per annum, capped by a bonus of os per share, with an addition of LIO.OOO to iv serve fund, af tr which a larger amennt was carried forward than w T as brought over from previous halfyear. Its L 25 shares are at 1.60 or thereabouts. And in illustration of the advantages of numerous moderate-sized accounts, it is stated that, a year ago, the bank had not an account in its books by which it could, by any possibility, and under the worst circumstances, lose LIO,OOO. A rather singular defiance of the law by an otherwise well behaved subject has been repeated at Meredith, near Geelong. A respectable tradesman of the town has already been summoned nine times before the local police court, for neglecting to vaccinate his child, and fined in various sums amounting to L2 10s. His refusal to comply with the Public Health Act, is bast-d on the following grounds “That vaccination is a violation of God’s commandments ; that it is dangerous to the child’s health ; and lastly, that it is no preventation. Ik a hair of a dog is good for his bite, that expiuns "hy sulphur, which comes from Vesuvius, is good for eruptions. Refuge foii an Old Tragedian.—A retired Hamlet.—Zozimus.