LATEST INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

Grey River Argus, Volume VI, Issue 400, 6 August 1868, Page 3

LATEST INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

To judge from an account given by a Sydney correspondent of the Yass Courier, the recent case of the Rev. C. H. Craufrud, of Oldswinford, England, who achieved a pecnliar kind of notoriety by the sermon he delivered on the subject of his second marriage, has.fouucl an almost exact parallel in the neighbouring colony. The account states : — " Like our English friend, the Rev. C. H. Craufrud, Ashford, the Parramatta clergyman has, to the great astonishment of his relations, friends and parishioners, engaged to many a young person not sixteen years of age, the daughter of a publican living in the town. When asked concerning this pledge, he manfully acknowledged its truthfulness, and said he was sure his ohoice would not be acceptable to the parish and he would arrange to leave. The bishop wa3 communicated with, and arrangements made for his successor. But for what follows I should certainly not have thought of saying much about the worthy parson, but last Sunday even ; ing, when preaching his farewell sermon, he took occasion to deliver a most vulgar and abusive discourse upon respectability for turning its back upon him, several of the leading families having left the church since the denouement of the interesting affair. Like his prototype at Oldswinford, he made an attempt to preach rather than live down the gossip occasioned. The following is the elegant diction of the clergyman referred to. I give it to you word for word, and it ia a choice specimen of an evening sermon from the pulpit of a church :—'Respectability indeed ! I hate the name, and pray that I may never be considered respectable. Respectability won't allow you to use the knife for the fork, yet it receives with open arms the well-dressed and jewelled monger, swindler, and seducer, and often rewards him by making him a member of Parliament or an alderman. Respectability would not allow a man to rob a henroost, but it sanctions his robbing his creditors of thousands. I shall be satisfied to die without being respectable if one individual can be found to sit on my tombstone and say— "Here are the remains of a man who reclaimed one soul from sin," which I hope to do by rearing up a fair-haired son.' The whole church was convulsed with laughter, and his future wife was present during this very delicate public allusion." The funeral of Mr William Ray, late senior sergeant of the senior company of the East Melbourne Artillery, of which he was also an original member, took place on Saturday, 18th insi, with military honours. The coffin was carried to the Melbourne Cemetery on a gun-car-riage, accompanied by about a hundred men of the East Melbourne Artillery under Major Raven, and detachments from the Carlfcon and Oollingwood Rifles, and the band of the Collingwood Rifles playing the " Dead March." The burial service was read by the Rev. H. H. P. Handfield, and on its conclusion a firing party, under Sergeant Wardill and Corporal Astley, fired the usual military funeral salut© over the grave. The deceased was greatly respected. We (Argus) are glad to note from the Hobart Town papers, that the development of the coal mines of Tasmania is likely to progress in private hands. "Under such management," says the Mercury, " the works of the defunct Seymour Coal-njining Company arc likely to