INTERCOLONIAL

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 330, 3 July 1875, Page 3

INTERCOLONIAL

AUSTRALIA.

We take the following items from our exchanges : The population of the colony of Victoria on the 31st March, 1875, according to the Government statist’s quarterly abstract, was 810,422, viz :—440,140 males and 370,282 females. The gain to the population by excess of births over deaths during the quarter was 1280, and by excess of arrivals over departures 705, The total increase was therefore 1985. It has been announced that the Rev Chas Strong, of Anderston, Glasgow, has accepted an invitation to fill the pastorate of the Scots’ Church, Melbourne.

The annual competition and practice of the fire brigades, held this year at Sandhurst, took place on the 24th and 25th ult. There was a large muster of firemen, and everything passed oil very satisfactorily. The Ballarat Brigade obtained the first place at hose practice, and the Sandhurst No 1 Brigade at ladder and sheet practice.

Nothing has since been heard of Mr W. H. Gresham, who with two men went in a boat on the bay, on the early morning of the 13th of May. The boat, which had capsized, was picked up at Schnapper Point some days afterwards, and there can be no doubt that Mr Gresham and his two companions have perished. A fund is being raised for the relief of Mr Gresham’s family, who are left in bad circumstances.

Recent cases of a most disgraceful character, which have been brought before the criminal courts in Tasmania, show that the most culpable negligence and laxity exists in the manner in which the prisons and reformatories of the colony are conducted. Captain Heath has selected the south-west point of Thursday Island as the new settlement at Cape York. Mr David Grayson, ex-alderman of Brisbane, has been sent to gaol for three months, having failed to pay the fine of £75 imposed upon him for a breach of the municipal laws.

The Border Watch (Mount Gambier) of June 9th reports:—“ A few days ago some of the workmen at Mr T. Morris’s new dwelling house, in course of erection at Kalangadoo, whilst quarrying stone, discovered at a depth of about 6ft a large quantity of sheila and bones of marine animals. Some of these bones were very large, and several were in an almost perfect state of preservation. Several of the largest of them—comprising, it is believed, part of the vertebrae—Mr Morris intends, we are informed, to send to Melbourne for scientific examination. These fossils were lying below a layer of clay 2ft thick, over which was a layer of sand and alluvial soil 3ft thick.”

A curious death has happened at Alma, in the Maryborough district. A young girl named Eleanor Herron, who a few minutes before was playing about the house, was found by her younger sister hanging from a strap, fastened to a nail in the verandah, quite dead. The deceased had always been of a happy and cheerful disposition, and it was suggested by Dr Julian, who made a post mortem, examination of the body, that the poor girl had been trying experiments, and had thus met her death. He instanced several recorded cases of young and old persons experimenting in order to try how they would feel while hanging. At the inquest the jury returned a verdict of accidental death, brought about as suggested by Dr Julian.

Captain Payne, chief harbourmaster, has been furnished with a suggestion by Mr Geo. Hi Johnstone, of Buninyong, for providing better means than the corked bottles usually employed for setting afloat information of a ship in distress or sinking. He proposes that vessels' or buoys should be made of some metal, say copper, with an aperture sufficiently large to admit packages, and to be closed with a screw lid, which should make the vessel airtight. Into a cap should be fitted an iron mast, with fixed yards, from which a bell would be suspended. Such a vessel afloat would be more durable than a bottle, and would, by its constant ringing, more easily attract attention. At a special meeting of the Medical Society of Victoria, June 16th, resolutions were passed approving of the action of the medical board in refusing to register the Chinese applicant, Quock Ping, as a legally qualified medical practitioner, and empowering a subcommittee to inform the Board of the resolution, and if necessary, employ counsel to oppose an application proposed to be made to the Supreme Court to issue a mandamus compelling the Board to register Quock Ping. The Bendigo Advertiser writes: —“ We have often heard it said that our climate is not conducive to long life, but if the same state of things exists in other parts of the colony as was revealed at the monthly meeting of the Bendigo Hospital Committee on Wednesday night, this view would seem not to be founded on facts. The resident surgeon reported that fifteen deaths had occurred during the month in the institution, and of these eight men had passed three score years, and that there were then several other persons in the hospital considerably above that age.” The amount at which the estate of the late Michael Dawson has been sworn was incorrectly printed yesterday. The correct figures are £228,600. For about three months, writes the Fijian correspondent of the Argus, Mr Joske has been engaged on his plantation here in distilling rum. The still now at work is only a small one, Mr Joske having obtained the copper plates from Melbourne, soon, with the mechanical skill he had handy on his plantation, fixed up a temporary one to test the probable result of bis undertaking. The trial had been so far satisfactory as to induce him to order a large one from Melbourne, when under easy circumstances he will be able to produce about 200 gallons a day, or about 150 quarter-casks per month. The brave conduct of Hugh M‘Gregor, a boy of fourteen years of age, who in the course of the last two years has saved three lives, has received the well merited recognition of the Royal Humane Society of England, and his Excellency the Acting-Gover-nor, on the 18th ult, performed the pleasing duty of bestowing the bronze medal of the society upon the youthful hero. M'Gregor, who at the time lived with his step-father, Mr Mathews, at Wahgunyah, on the Murray River, has at different periods saved three boys from drowning. Their names were, Hugh Jamieson, John O’Leary, and Donald Brown, aged respectively nine, five, and seven years. In the last case, which happened in December 1873, M'Gregor exhi bited, for so young a lad, astonishing coolness and bravery,

The Attorney-General attended at the Patents office on 15th June and granted the application of Mr A. Dempster, of Oollinsstreet east, for Letters Patent for certain improvements in apparatus for making air gas, by which it is said that all possibility of dangerous explosions is obviated. The apparatus is almost entirely automatic, making and supplying gas to as many burners as may be lighted, and ceasing to generate it in part or in whole, as some or all of the taps are closed. It is exceedingly simple in construction, and will produce gas at a very moderate rate. It is not intended, however, to come into competition with the gas produced by the companies, but only to provide a cheap and efficient means of lighting beyond the reach of their mains. Mr Waters conducted the application. “ Now that settlement is going on around Cooper’s Creek,” the Pastoral Times writes, “ we suggest that the spot where Burke was found dead, after his famous march across the continent, and back to this spot, should be denoted by something more durable than the mere hacked tree in the wilderness. The tree may soon be hewn down, and perhaps burnt, though a month ago it was standing intact. How the brave men Burke and Wills perished here is a mystery, unless they were dead beaten when they returned to the spot where they died, which will be famous yet in history. The creeks hereabout abound in fish; even cod of thirty or forty pounds weight arc caught here, which the few whites half live upon. The creeks_ are generally very deep, as much as 40ft in depth. The wild fowl are in myriads—duck, teal, wild turkey, &c, abound. The whites that roam about Cooper's Creek conclude that the unfortunate but brave explorers died chiefly from intense disappointment after their long journey, as here the few settlers get such an abundance of fish and game that they hardly need to kill cattle or sheep. The blacks are useful in helping to keep the whites in fish and game, the poor aborigines as yet being quiet; but this is not expected to last very long. The more nomadic of them will be sure to spear the cattle when the war between them and the whites is well begun—the more docile of the aboriginals will stick to the whites, the most warlike will be sure to do the reverse. The country around Cooper’s Creek is reported as beautiful for pastoral purposes, water and grass being, so far, abundant. Victorian settlers are fast pushing ahead here, and there is scarcely a small run to be had. all the country being taken up, and becoming stocked.” The Inglewood Advertiser has been informed that a nugget worth some £25 was found in the scrub on Friday about a mile north of Inglewood.