AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 621, 15 June 1876, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

The Melbourne correspondent of the Daily Times supplies the following additional items of news to those already published : The date for the assembling of Parliament has been fixed for Tuesday, 21st of July. Various rumors are afloat as to the course which will be pursued, but the delay, in calling Parliament together when the now financial year has commenced will afford the Opposition a handle for an attack on the Government, Then the Stevenson case is sure to be brought forward, but it is sai l that the Government supporters will not desert the Ministry on this question. The Premier is to be entertained by his constituents at Warrnambool at the end of this month, when no doubt he will then foreshadow something of the Government policy. The ball having been set a rolling in the Stevenson matter, it is difficult to say when it will stop. The prosecution for defrauding the revenue over the scarfs and gloves utterly broke down when the defence came to be heard. Competent witnesses gave very different valuations to the goods from the informer Trowell and some of the experts brought forward by the Crown, When all was over, the general opinion was that it was dismissed by the narrow majority of five to four. It was then thought that any further proceedings in a similar direction would have been abandoned, and statements to that effect were publicly made, but at the meeting of the Cabinet yesterday the Government refused to interfere, and cast all the responsibility on the Crown Law and Customs Departments, and another case is to be heard to-day.

Bumor has it that the Cabinet are divided on the Stevenson question. Anyhow, it is well known that both the Premier and Post-master-General were strongly averse to opening the letters. A second cable to Europe is still engaging public attention, and it is likely that Sir Julius Vogel’s proposal for a conference of the colonies will be acted upon. Mr Cracknel!, the Superintendent of Telegraphs in Sydney, has been despatched to America, it is said, on a special mission in connection with this subject. The existing cables are still silent, and at last the Edinburgh, which has been for three months lying in ordinary at Sydney, is to be despatched to Port Darwin to fish up the broken ends. When once she arrives, the work of repairing will be soon accomplished, as the break is close to the shore. We yet, however, hear nothing of the Madras and Penang line, and whether it is now at work. There are two or three events of some importance to the colonies to be decided in the old country at the end of this month, and early in the next. I refer to the championship of the Thames on June 26th, between Sadler and Tricket, of Sydney, and the performance of our Rifle team at Wimbledon in July. Mr William Rutledge, a very old colonist, known by the sobriquet of “ Terrible Billy,” has died at the age of seventy. It is expected that his property will be worth over 3200,000. The National Reform League—who have been fildy styled “ a knot of pothouse politicians”— continue to make themselves ridiculous. Failing to secure the impeachment of Sir William Stawell, they have now turned their attention to Sir Geo ge Bowen, and are desirous of obtaining his recall by petition to the Q xeen. The Hawthorn mystery contains all the elements of the sensational. At first the disappearance of Mrs Thompson and her son was thought lightly of; then it became known that they had had a quarrel, and the eon was suspected of having made away with his mother, and of having absconded. After a week of conjecture and search, the body of young Albert Thomson was found hanging to a rafter in an attic in bis own house at Hawthorn, a canvas ceiling having concealed him from view, The suspicion of the mother having met with foul play became stronger, but up to this time no trace of her remains has been discovered. _ The body can scarcely bo near at hand with all the publicity which this case has received. The garden has been dug up, wells and water holes dragged, and all to no purpose, A new Bishop of Melbourne baa been ap pointed. The Rev Mr Moorhouse, Vicar of Paddington and Prebendary of St

Paul’s, is the gentleman wbo has resigned a living of £I2OO a year to fill the see of Melbourne.

We have intelligence of the Skerryvore having arrived safely with our Philadelphian exhibits. The Exhibition was opened on May 10th with great ceremony, and that is all we know at present ; but as the principal papers in four of the Australian colonies have sent special correspondents, we are sure to be soon well supplied with news.