LATEST INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XI, Issue 1023, 6 November 1871, Page 2

LATEST INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

Richard Jones has been sentenced to death at Bathurst for rape. The new rush to Lake Cowal promises to turn out well. Rust is spreading in the Hunter district. The opera troupe will proceed from Sydney to Auckland by the American steamer Nevada. The United New South Wales! Assurance Company has declared no dividend for the past half-year. The Government has appointed a commission to examine the Gulgong diggings. _ By intelligence from Fiji we learn that Captain Wetherall, formerly a master mariner of Melbourne, died on the 3rd ult. from dropsy and paralysis. Captain Wetherall was at one time railway stationmaster at Williamston, but resumed his former calling and sailed some time ago for Fiji, in the schooner Margaret Chessell. The Brisbane Colonist of the 18th. October reports :— " The death by drowning of three men, named respectively Harpur, Reed, and Gadds, and of a black-boy belonging to Mr Rawlins, P.M., occurred on Friday last, at the mouth of the Nerang Creek. The men and boy were in a boat, and were endeavoring to put out into deep water when the boat was upset in the surf, and the whole party drowned in sight of several persons on shore, who were unable to render them any help." Mr Ireland, Q.C., it is said, has received a fee of 200 guineas to appear in a case in Tasmania. Mr Ah Young, an enterprising Chinese speculator, arrived in Launceston by the last trip of the Derwent, from Melbourne, accompanied by Mr Ah Kin, for the purchasing fat pigs for the Victorian market. They have made (says tbe Cornwall Chronicle) arrangements for supplying their countrymen throughout the Victorian diggings with live pork, and they are in a fine way of doing an extensive and remunerative trade. Australia has its own peculiar supersti- j tions. Mopoke Gully, StrathloddonJ(says the M, A. Mail) has quite recently been visited by the bird after which it takes its name, and nightly can be heard the distinct, loud, and monotonous cry of "Mo-poke, Mo-poke." It is somewhat singular, and a curious fact, that in the early days when the gully was full of them, they were never heard in any adjoining gully, but strictly confined themselves to that one locality. The miners look upon the return of the mopoke after the lapse of so many years as a good omen, as they say gold was always got when the bird was in the gully. Perhaps one of the quickest rises in mining stock that the Bendigo Advertiser has had to record is that which took place on Monday night in the Catherine Reef United, Sandhurst, which rose in about half an hour in the evening from 23s to 345. At the first figure the value of the company would be L 74,440, at the latter, LU2,520; the total increased value in the short space of a little over half an hour being L 38,080. Some thousands of pounds were made during the " run." Many and extraordinary are the excuses made by those who succumb to the potency of intoxicating liquors, but the most extraordinary apology for being drunk comes from Adelaide. Lately, an old lady of respectable appearance was charged at the Adelaide Police Court with being drunk, and was fined ss. In extenuation of her offence she pleaded that she went to a meeting in reference to reading the Bible in schools, and said that the moment she left the room " she got quite light-headed, and had not been right since. The police magistrate (says the Begister) could not see the validity of the excuse, and refused to remit the fine. The body of a man named William Wallin, aged seventy-four, who lived in a right-of-way off Moor street, Fitzroy, was found on the 17th ult., a few minutes before 4 o'clock p.m., hanging to a rafter of the house he had occupied. He was last seen alive at 3 o'clock of the same day, but for two or three days before he had shown symptoms of insanity. On a table in the room a sum of Ll2, counted out in silver, was found, and in his pocket a gold watch with a gold chain attached Another watch was found in a bag in the house. The deceased is supposed to be the owner of house property worth about LI6OO. Another tale of horror comes from Ballarat. The Evening Mail says : — " A very ugly rumor reaches us from Napoleona. 1 It has been more or less town talk during the day, and as such we give it — names being, for obvious reasons, withheld. It is said a young man, well known on the lead named, has been for some time past residing with two of his sisters, and has had improper intimacy with at least one of them, and that a child, the fruit of their incestuous intercourse, has died and been secretly buried. It is also said the police are diligently pushing their inquiries into the matter, and are endeavoring to discover the place where the child is buried, with a view of an exhumation of the body, in order to ascertain whether foul play has been perpetrated, or to initiate a prosecution for concealing the birth of the infant." A fatal accident happened on the Yarra on the 23rd October, near the Botanical Gardens, Melbourne. Mr F. C. Appleton, of the Princess' Theatre, accompanied by his wife and sister, was rowing on the river, when the boat in which they were came in contact with an outrigger, rowed by Harry Leston, of the Theatre Royal company, and Frederick Marks, and steered by Alfred Collins. The outrigger was capsized, and its occupants thrown into the river. Leston and Marks with some difficulty got into Appleton's boat, and then tried to save Collins, who was struggling in the water. Appleton also jumped in and tried to rescue him, but he sank, and was not s.een again. The deceased was a young man, unmarried, and was a saddler at Fitzroy. The police dragged the river for the body until dusk, but without success.