AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Feilding Star, Volume XI, Issue 151, 14 June 1890, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

By Electric Te'egraph. — Copyright fFEIt UNITED PHH^X ASSOCIATION.) Sydnby, June 12. John Steele. the banknote forger, was found guilty and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. When arrested several hundred clever forgeries of £1 notes on the Australian Joint Stock Bank at Sydney and the Union Bank at Melbourne, were found in bis possession, and in his house at Waterloo copper plates, stamps dies, and other engraver's appliances were found. John Farnham and Buchanan, the fireman and stoker of the Sydney train which collided with the Brisbane mail train at Farley on the 13th ult., have been acquitted on the charge of manslaughter. Government attention has been drawn to the state of potato, carrot, parsnip, and peach tree roots, which areinfesled with insects, which are likely to become a national calamity. The pest is identified as similar to that which devastated large tracts of beet country in Germany, and also cansed serious dumage to crops in America. A letter has been received from Dt Nanses, Swedish arctic explorer, regret* in? be is unable to visit the colonies on a lecturing tour owing to his being engaged in preparations for another Arctic expedition. PbbtHi June 13. The schooner Johanna, bound from Mauritius to Melbourne, has put into this port in distress. The majority of the crew are down with fever, four of them having succumbed to its effects. Very tempestuous weather was met with but although the vessel was leaking, the mate, with the assistance of the captain's wife, managed to navigate her into port in safety. "