AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Evening Star, Issue 3622, 1 October 1874, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

A kind of craze, says the Melbourne * Argus,’ seems to have prevailed lately among the people at Ballarat as to the best method of disposing, after death, of their present living bodies, but in nearly all these cases the movers have been afflicted with some natural malformation. One medical gentleman has had the body of a well-known deformed individual bequeathed to him for anatomical purposes, and a lady with a singular malformed arm has bequeathed that member to the same gentleman. Another person, a most worthy man, who was struck deaf most suddenly at sixteen years of age without any known cause, has bequeathed his head to another surgeon, while a forth has bequeathed his deformed leg to a third medico; but the climax appears to have been reached at a recent meeting of the hospital committee, when a well-known friend of the institution—Mr W. Higgins bequeathed by his will, duly signed and attested, “ his body, after death, to the hospital, to be dissected and dealt with as may be thought most desirable in the cause of science.” Victorian mining statistics for the quarter ending 30th June, 1874, show the yield to have been—Alluvial, 106,9340z; quartz, 164,9050z.; total, 271,8390z. The quantity of gold exported was 233,2720z. An “Amateur Casaul” has been visiting the Melbourne Immigrants’ Home and has described his experience in the ‘ Age.’ The account is anything but sensational, and concludes with the following remark “ Doubtless much of the misery to be found there is the direct result of vice, improvidence, or

profligacy, but there is yet a large residuum of honest poverty caused by the peculiar circumstances of the Colony, which must be relieved unless we would suiFer the shame of letting unhappy wretches die in our streets, and the only resource open to many a sufferer in this hitter weather is the prison or the home.”

H.M.S. Blanche has been very unfortunate in the number of hands she has lost through desertion. One of the officers says, in a letter published by a contemporary If W e stay out much longer we shall not have hands enough to take her Home ; there are no end of desertions. \Y e have lost thirty hands this time in New Zealand, and only been here two months. Since the B.anche came out we have lost 120 in all.”

The North Cross Reef Company, Pleasant Creek, has declared its sixtieth dividend of 30s per 10,000 th share, or or L 15,000 for the last five weeks’ work. A crushing cleaned up on Wednesday gave the • following yield : 4,4360z 12dwts of gold, from 1,960 tons of quarts, or an average of sozs 12dwts 12grs per ton. In addition to this splendid return, the ‘Pleasant Creek News’ states there were some small trifles in the shape of thousands of pounds worth of gold crushed from what is called the track of a reef, which is entirely supplementary to the main lode.

Mr W. J. Clarke is about to build a music hall in Ballarat at a cost of LI 1,000.

An old Waterloo veteraness (if we may use the term) gave herself up at the city lock-up (says the ‘ Ballarat Courier), as having no lawful means of support. Her name is Maggie Macdonald, and she is a sturdy old lady, who has seen eighty-one summer suns and many wintry snows. Her story is that she was married at fifteen toayoung Scotch soldier, whom she followed to the wars, and was with on the field of Waterloo. Her eldest son, if he were living, would be sixty-seven years of age, but he fell fighting for his country in the Crimea, where two of his brothers also fell, and two more in India. The old lady says she has two other sons, but cannot say whether they be dead or alive. Her husband died some nine years ago. She is still hale and hearty, and according to her own account can do a day’s washing, or any other description of similar work, if she can but get employment.