WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 758, 24 November 1876, Page 3

WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

We (Argus) are in receipt of Western Australian files to the 30th ult. The following is a summary of the news : The diary of Mr John Brockman, a private settler who recently travelled with Btook from the Murchison to Nickol Bay, has been published. It describes a large extent of splendidly grassed arid well watered, but hitherto unexplored, country. There is every reason to believe that the land is rich in minerals. Mr Brockman picked up pieces of splendid copper and lead, and states that on a mineral ridge near the Henry River he could see a lode of copper ore running westerly for many miles sparkling in the sun. Mr Brockman also found large quantities of octangular crystals, beautifully clear, and resembling the Sydney diamond, The party found quantities of native melons, figs, yams, and wild tobacco. The one difficulty to be apprehended in the settlement of this splendid country would be the hostility of the aboriginal natives. Mr Brockman met several parties of them, and on one occasion rifles had to be brought into requisition. When in the vicinity of the Lyonß river, a number of natives appeared on some rising ground thinly covered with stunted trees. The blaok fellows were dancing about, gesticulating violently, and shaking their long spears at their strange visitors. Upon being fired at, however, they decamped in evident consternation. They stuck to their spears, however, which are described by Mr Brockman as being " terrible looking weapons, freshly barbed, and no doubt pointed for our benefit." They also carried spare barb points, about lOia long, u'xed to their arm. Their " wommeras " were neatly carved and ornamented. The natives themeelves are described as fierce, savoge lookiug fellows, more like wild animals than human oeings.

'lhe barque Hero of the Nile, of 356 tons, bound from Melbourne to Fremantle, was stranded near Point Belcher, south of Garden Island, # on the morning of the 20th of October.* Captain Dugdall and his wife went to Fremantle in the coaster Eveline Mary, which went to their assistance. The vessel has since been condemned by a Board of Survey, and sold as a wreck. The Hero of the Nile was iu ballast, and was on the way to tlio Saeo.peda Islands to load with guauo on account cf Messrs Poole, Picken, and Co.

An aggravated assault on a boy of twelve years of age, an inmate of the Roman Catholic Boys' Orphanage at Subiaco, which formed the subject of an investigation at the Perth Police Court on the 21st October, resulted in the perpetrators of the outrage—the Rev Father Carreras, the principal of the institution, and • a young man named Whiteley, the schoolmaster —being each fined £2O. The boy ran away from school because he was severely beaten by the schoolmaster across the palm of tho hand with a white gum stick as thick as his thumb. These cuts were given in exchange for every word of spelling the boy missed, and, as the words were hard, the cuts were frequent. When he was taken back, by direction of Father Carreras Whiteley, the schoolmaster, administered across the boy's loins thirty-six lashes with a cat o'-nine-tads made of a fish-line,

the ends being tipped with plaited catgut. The boy's baok was laid bare in Court, and exhibited discoloured marks and incrustations painful to behold. Father Oarreras has since resigned his charge. The children of the Protestant Orphanages are beiDg instructed in the mysteries of silkgrowing. Mr Clayton, of the Government magnanerie, has about 100,000 fine healthy worms, and Mons Beurteaux has a similar number, estimated to produce 4cwt of silk, at a value from £250 to £3OO.