AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Evening Star, Issue 4119, 10 May 1876, Page 4

AUSTR A LIAN ITEMS.

Steps are being taken to introduce a new amusement in Melbourne, a meeting having recently been held for the purpose of establishing aLa Crosse Club. It is believed that many who do not care to take part in games of football will be glad to introduce, as a winter sport, the game of La Crosse. It is a’ kind of Indian racquets, and is the favorite’out-door pastime in Lower Canada. • The fo! owing is an example of what the Geelong ‘Times : calls the “gross injustice ” of the Lunacy Statute: —A man named Wm. Whitting, who gives his address as M'Crae street, Sandhurst, came to Melbourne with the intention of going |to Adelaide. On arriving at Sandridge he had no money, and yet, strange to say, a boatman, without fee or reward from Whitting,' but simply at his request, put him.on board the steamer Aldinga. On the passage out ward he was somewhat eccentric, but not to the extent as to lead to the belief that be was insane. Arrived off Queenscliffe, be was smuggled ashore in the pilot’s boat and subsequently arrested by Senior-constable Hall as a lunatic not under proper control. ®n being examined by two medical menjhe was. pronounced to be harmlessly insane, and ultimately committed to the Kew Asylum, the Borough of saddled with L 6 Is expenses. . - ;

A free pardon has been granted to Edmund Ghinn, a clerk in the Bank of Victoria, who was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment for stealing about L 2,000 in notes, the property of the bank. An engine on the Hobson’s Bay railway got off the railway, but was soon replaced without much damage to either person or propei ty. As showing how news gathers in i transmission, it is stated that, when the in-

telligence reached Melbourne, the mishap was magnified into the smashing of the en- 1 gine and death of the engine-driver. There can be no mistaking what is meant 1 by a Victorian editor when he inserts the 1 following paragraph :—Kef erring to a certain 1 Shire President in the Western district, the 1 ‘Warmambool Examiner ’ writes : “When 1 the President of a Shire Council has the 1 ignorance and impertinence to say that ‘ it was only by the courtesy of public bodies 1 that the press reporters were admitted to 1 take notes of their proceedings,’ we think it I is quite within our province to say that he is a consummate fool.

What is fortunate’y a very uncommon cir- 1 cumstance in Melbourne happened in the City Court. The ‘ Telegraph’ says that a police constable appeared to prosecute a woman for drunkenness, and while in the witness-box conducted himself in a most extraordinary manner. He gravely asserted that he found the woman reposing in a water-channel “ in a semi-naked state of intoxication.’’ As the woman was not his prisoner at all, it was rather hard that she should be charged with such extraordinary conduct, and as the condition of the constable himself appeared to be such as to merit the favor of a sentence from the Bench, he was sternly commanded to stand down by Inspector Ryall. The woman was dischaged, I and so was the female who should have occupied a place in the dock just before, the constable apparently not being in a condition to give his evidence. scotch jock’s will. A domestic relations of the late David Nesbitt, more generally known as “Scotch Jock,” were the subject of a suit which was

partially heard in the Equity Court, Mel- 1 bourne, before Mr Justice Molesworth. Tie 1 •testator had, as far back as 1853, executed a [ deed as between himself and his wife, by I which all that each possessed should be 1 demised in case of death to the one snr- 1 viving. Subsequently Mr and Mrs Nesbitt would, appear to have quarrelled and separated, and so remained for some years. In I the meantime the testator made the ac- I qnamtauce of a Mrs Weeks, otherwise Smith, who while he was in New Zealand showed him great kindness, in gratitude for which, judging from the evidence, he made her a principal legatee in a will dated Gth ' October, 1875, from all benefit, under which

the widow was excluded, Mr Albert Read, solicitor, and friend of the family, prepared the will in question, and in it his two sons were left LIOO. The circumstances under which the document was prepared were somewhat peculiar, the grounds upon which it was disputed being informality and want of testamentatory capacity on the part of the testator. The evidence on behalf of the executors was somewhat contradictory; while that given so far for the caveator, Mrs Nesbitt, the widow, went to show that Nesbitt was drunk when he signed the will, and that he not only left the room while it was in course of execution, but that he signed after the witnesses had attached their signatures. This latter evidence, it must be stated, was given by a man named M‘Vickers, who was a servant of the testator, and who had been subsequently convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment for illegally pawning a portion of Mr Nesbitt’s property. '