AUSTRALIAN NOTES

Evening Star, Issue 4038, 4 February 1876, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NOTES

A young man named Henry Davis was fined L2 10s on January 11, at the Echuca Police Court for a most savage and unprovoked assault on his stepfather. The * Riverine Herald ’ states that a boat used by defendant, but belonging to complainant, was taken possession of by the latter, when Davis, seizing a 14ft. pole, avenged the liberty by felling its owner insensible to the ground by a heavy blow on the head with the murderous club. The Christmas “ festivities ”of a party of bushmen in the Warrego district, Queensland, were brought to a shocking conclusion a few days since, A number of shearers and washers went to a bush publichouse some distance from the station on which they were employed, and had a tremendous debauch. “On January 3,” writes the ‘Brisbane Courier,’ “a party of six men, who had seen the spree out, started from a publichouse at Burenda for Nive Downs by a bush track. On the following day a stockman on Burenda reported at the head station that a man greatly exhausted had reached the Six-mile hut, stating that he and five others had left the township for Mve Downs, and that he feared some of the party had perished. Another of the party, James Larking, it was ascertained, had reached his destination greatly exhausted. A search party was immediately despatched from Burenda station to find the missing men. Two have been discovered dead, and the search for the others is still proceeding.” THE WHITTAKER CLAIMANTS. With respect to the Whittaker estate, the ‘ South Australian Register ’ writes :—“We have carefully examined the copy of the pedigree with which we were favored at the time of the trial affecting this estate before the local Court of Appeals, and from it we are forced to say that there is a decided conflict of testimony between William Whittaker and Mrs Notley,the Sandhurst claimant. Two small facts lend an air of possibility to the statement of the latter. The first is that she heard from James Whittaker in 1833, when he was at Sydney. This point agrees with the history of the deceased intestate, as set forth by the present holder of the property. The other is that, at the time of the trial, it was stated that inquiries had been made at the war-office as to the date of the intestate’s father’s death. The Court, however, was not furnished with the result, and the legal presumption is that they were unsatisfactory.

THE BISHOP OF SYDNEY AND HIS CLERGY, The Bishop of Sydney does not find the whole of his flock so amenable as he could wish. One of his clergymen in particular, the Rev. Zachary Barry, who is greatly his diocesan’s superior in scholarship, and who has a delightful amount of Irish pugnacity, is always putting thorns into the bishop’s bed of roses. Just now he is goading him on the subject of the right of clergymen to preach in dissenting pulpits. He takes his stand on the legal opinion recently given in England that though this is illegal in the mother country it is not so in the Colonies, and he holds therefore that a Colonial clergyman is free to do what is neither illegal nor improper, hut what on the contrary has a great tendency to display and to strengthen Christian union. The bishop holds that a clergyman is bound, not only by the strict Jfitter of the law, but by the spirit of the Jpvernment and practice of the mother church—that practically rules are as binding as laws, and that he, as bishop, has distinctly condemned the practice, a clergyman is bound by his oath of obedience to abstain from it. Many who are friendly to the bishop think that he is pressing his authority too far, and trying to bring his clergy into too abject a vassalage. And, moreover, they dislike the apparent isolation and unsympathetic tone of his recommendation to his clergy to keep their ministrations strictly limited to their own church.

AN UNUSUAL OCCURRENCE. An unusual occurrence temporarily delayed the business of the Launceston. Supreme Court on January 5. The ‘ Cornwal Chronicle’ reports that “Sir Francis Smith, the Chief Justice, was summing up the voluminous evidence in the bankruptcy case of Robert- Clarke, of Westwood, with his usual clearness and lucidity, when he stopped and said to the jury, ‘ Pray, excuse me, I am suffering from headache.’ . After 11 brief pause, he proceeded again, and appeared to have recovered, but he soon again stopped and said, ‘ Dear me, I never felt in this way before.’ It was suggested that as it was lunch time, his Honor would do well to adjourn for a short time. His Honor said, ‘ I passed a sleepless night, and took some sal volatile for the purpose of curing a severe headache, but this will pass away.’ Again Sir Francis proceeded with further comments on the case, and, then pausing, said—‘l am afraid I must retire,’ and iTe adjourned the Court for half-an-hour. His Honor suffered very severely, but he completed his summing up at the end of the half hour. Next day, Sir Francis appeared to be in his usual state of health, with his mind «s clear as ever.” ■