AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Evening Star, Issue 3849, 25 June 1875, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

&o far as is at present known, the Sydney end of the New Zealand cable will be laid at Broken Bay, at the mouth of the Hawkesbury. Some scoundrel recently forwarded through the South .aistralianpost two packages contain* ing strychnine. A got deal of the stuff cot distributed over the papers in the Poßt ; offlce at Wakawens, where the packages were addressed, and made the Postmaster very ill. A shocking accident occurred at the North Old Chum mine, Sandhurst, on June 4. The cage, containing four men, was being lowered to the 540 ft. level, and when the cage had passed about 3ft. below the pl&t, the signal- wm given to ra i s?. Thoinai Richards, thinking it ’ had stopped, endeavored to step cut, but was jammed between the cage and-the plat. On eing . i l saia lowered Richards fell When picked up life was extinct. The mans skull was fractured, and there was scarcely a hone unbroken. The deceased was city years old, and leaves a wife and family. On the night of June 5 a most daring and audacious escape was made from BraidwoCd gaol by one of the prisoners confined therein, a young man named Patrick Campbell, or rather a mere lad, ho being only 1 7 years of aae. On Bun day morning, at the usual hour at which the prisoners are removed fiom their cells to the yard, about six or half-past six o’clock, the cell occupied by the prisoner was found tobe vacant, a small hj ie in tho brick wall where the ventilation grate bad been placed showing how he had made his exit. The warder, as may be well imagined, lost no time in apprising the gaoler of the occurrence, exclaiming, in doing so, that “ Campbell Lad gone.” The prisoner, on the day but one previous, had been allowed to go back to bed in his cell, and the gaoler s first impression upon hearing this exclamation was that he was dead. But ha was speedily undeceived as to his destination. and ( realised the stubborn fact that instead <st to .that buutnc from whence no traveller leturns, the fugitive had taken his departure over the hills, though scarcely far away. The ‘ Forbes Times ’ gives a report of a coroner s mquest on the body of a little girl twelve years of age, disclosing great brutality on the part of the child's parents. The verdict of the jury tell its own tale,—“We find that the deceased, Jessie Tucker, came to her death fioin exhaustion, debilitv, aud einaoia* tion, caused by want of sufficient, food, and through brutal corporeal punishment: also that Charles and Jane Tucker, the parents of the said child, are guilty of having caused the death of the aforesaid Jessie Tucker, throneh wilful neglect and cruelty.” The jury the following rider to their verdict!:— v\ e also request the coroner to call the attention of the Attorney-General of New South Wales to the fact that Dr Seth Sam, of this town, has given a certificate of death of the aforesaid Jessie Tucker without having seen her during life, which we consider to be reprehensible m the highest degree, as calculated to nefeat the ends of justice, especially as the certificate was given without any examination of the body of the deceased child.”. The parents were then committed to the Bathurst Circuit Court.

The Sydney municipality has not got over its troubles re its Town Hall. The Assembly passed a Bill abolishing the risk of the penalty now being sued for by a Mr Lavers, being recovered xn. the future, but inserted a proviso that the tneasuae should siot affect any action then pending. Great efforts have been made in the Council to get this proviso rejected, the legal talent of the House has been mostly in favor of this proposal; even Mr Darley, who as counsel has advised Mr L,avers that he has . a case, has as a legislator recommended that this right be taken away. Sir Alfred Stephen, an ex-chief justice; Mr Owen, an ex-dwtrfet court judge; Sir Win. Manning, who has acted both as judge and attorney-general; and Si r Georoe Junes, the late attorney-general, gave the high authority of their names in support M the proposal that the Bill should be made re* trospective, and they were only out-voted by a majority of one. The President and Sirlfi. Deas Thomson strongly opposed any retrospective legislation as a most dangerous precedent, Mr Lavers, therefore, has his ground clear before him, and we may see how the question will bo determined by a jury. Persons who feel an inclination to take part in the pastime of “tin-kettling ” a newly marked couple—a practice that is clearly a survival from the musical performances of savage life-may reflect with profit on a case that was tried before the Supreme Court, Melbourne, and on the verdict that was given by the jury. The case was one iu which a young man named Ueufree sued for damages, for an assault. Benfree had assisted at a kerosene-tin serenade given in honor of the defendant on his entering the holy state of matrimony. The defendant, Espie, endeavored as well as he could to enter into the fun of the thing, but after listening to the music for some twenty minutes it began to grow monotonous. With a view of dispelling his sense of weariness and thd crowd,'he loaded and discharged a gun, which was charged only with powder, although more substantial charges have sometimes been fired on such occasions. However, the discharge of the gun was attended with inconvenient consequences to Benfree, who had his face scotched with the powder, and is disfigured for life. He accordingly brought an action against Espie. In defence it was urged that the injury caused was not intentional, and that in any case it served Benfree right, as he had no business to annoy die defendant. The jury, who were probably married men, and who may have experienced similar inflictions at a critical moment of their lives, wished to find a verdict for the defendant, but the judge telling them that they must on the facts of the case find one for the plaintiff, they brought m one for Is damages. •