LATEST INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

Grey River Argus, Volume III, Issue 189, 30 March 1867, Page 3

LATEST INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

(From the Sydney j>apersj Brisbane, March 15. There has been a teriffic hurricane at. Cleveland Bay. The damage • caused thereby is estimated at L 15,000. Black's boiling-down establishment and a sugar plantation were destrayed at Clifton. The Alpine store and stock was also destroyed. She Townsville Hotel and Masonic Hall were levelled with the ground, and two other hotels were unroofed. The schooner Eva is missing. The new road over the range in blocked up. Emu Creek, March 16. Three men came in here yesterday from Forte Bourke. One of them — a very respectable young man, named Henry Thompson — informed me that he left Bourke Town ou Wednesday, the 20th February. The mail, which/left Menindie on the previous Sunday, and Mount Murchison on the previous Monday, came in before he left, but there was then no news in Burke Town relative to the supposed gold field at the Barrier Eange. He says that nothing was known of it at Bourke Town when he left. He has come here to mine, and the first news he got of the Barrier gold field was at this place. He says that if there were any truth in the report ho must have heard something of it, as ho has been some time in that part and knows all the people and the country well. He has travelled four hundred and fifty miles from Burke Town to here, and, as he says, it ia not likely he would have travelled that distance with a gold Hold within a hundred and fifty miles of where ho started, from. He gives a dreadful account of the country — seventy and eighty miles at a stretch without water, and none to bo had after leaving the Darling. Four sells at Is per pound at the Mount Murchison station, and if there is any rush there will not bo sufficient to supply any number of people. Tools are not to be had, and he believes that there is nothing but misery and death fo'^.thoae who go there. He begged of me to do my utmost to prevent people from going on this mad errand, as he firmly believes that there is no truth' whatever in the reports that have been circulated. There is great privation, fast verging upon destitution, amongst the mining population — particularly amongst the parties on the Star Gully, who have not been able as yet to get any return for their work. If rain does not fall within a week or two things will look really very serious, as the springs are fast failing, and no water at all is to be had nearer than four miles from here. The quantity of gold purchased by the banks this week has been only 050z., and this quantity lias been all in small lots. The gold has been washed at the shafts with purchased water. Melbourne, March 15. The banquet proposed to be given to the intercolonial delegates has broken through, the sub-committee having permitted their politicial feelings to interfere with the arrangement of the toasts— some members desiring to exclude "The Ministry "in the list. The result was, at the last moment, that the Governor, the delegates, the Ministers, and the Mayor declined to attend. A general feeling of regret is expressed at the result. A shocking case has occurred at Hotham. A tinsmith named Lyons, only just out of ! Pentridgc, where he had served three years for an outrage on his step-daughter, has agaiu been committed for trial for a similar crime ou his own aged fourteen years. March 18. As. to the Barrier Ranges gold field, the Riverine Herald says "a squatter on tho Darling writes that a number of men who went out in search of the gold iield rctuniod disappointed. One died on the way, one killed his horse to drink its blood, and tiiree reached the station in great exhaustion."- A letter in the Pastoral Times, from Menindio, speaks, as if there was not the slightest doubt of tho existence of a gold ticld, but says the accounts wore not very favorable from the scarcity of water. The Darling was a mere waterhole, and the water was so thick as to be unfit for cooking purposes. The import market is inanimate, though advices are regarded as favorable. Candfos have advanced U\ ; brown crystals sugar, L3B 103 ; Manilla sugars, ex Hyacinth, being only fit for refining purposes, have not found a market ; cheese, 14d to 141-d, and higher rates expected. Marteli's and Hennossy's opening prices for new brandies is 5s Id, but an advance of lOd to Is established on old brandies.