INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1076, 9 January 1872, Page 2

INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

[from late exchanges.] : ; ;. . " Caterpillars are ravaging some districts ,c of Tasmania. . , ;; ,, ;. ;• rv . .;> ■(# -. A double pig has been born at Bet Bet, Victoria. ■ v r .; - Miss Boltou, senr., and Miss- Rennie, junr., took the Fairfax prizes at the; Sydney University. . „, .. .. ;? A hail-storm in. Gipp's Land cut the backs of cattle as if they had been scoured) with a stock whip. . .^ . v •!, i; A composition for reducing the heat on buildings has been invented in Melbourne. It resembles white paint. V T Fruit is very cheap in Victoria this season, and vegetables are being, sold, .for " next to nothing," ; r ,. , />n ... Four hundred and fifty pounds has been subscribed towards the Bishop Pattison memorial fund. A diamond of some size has been founds by a bullock-driver on Quenery's run, near Mansfield, Victoria. A Sydney paper urges that China is a more promising market for preserved meat than England. A mild form of the foot and mouth disease has appeared among some cattle ■ pepently landed at Sydney frqm England. " The new lunatic asylum at Kew, near* — Melbourne, is out of th 9 builders' hands. Its total cost will be about L 150,000. Hobart Town is suffering from a plague v of anonymous letters of a villainous oharacter. | , '>"■<' A company is to be formed in Melbourne to build a new opera house, the plans for which are already prepared, and are said to be " truly magnificent." A sheep, 18 months old, shorn at Moorak, S.A., yielded a f b,eautifuljy; silky" fleece, weighing 231 b. It was not shorn as a lambi A. Melbourne contemporary says that a sum of L3IQ ha? been presented to- the Rev. MrTyerman, at Sandhurst, by his ' admiring spiritistic friends.. ;.- ; • . ■; / ■: . The Melbourne University Council Ijara refused to allow ladies who have passed' '■• the matriculation examination -to attend the leotures, The much-dreaded vine disease has appeared in the ; neighborhood 'of : Mel-£ bourne, which ha 3 hitherto been 'exempt' from its attacks. . . Five acres of barley on a farm uear Geelong were destroyed by lightning. The electric fluid left the tops of the . ' cereal quite white and dried. ;-. |"^ At Albury, N.S.W., a man was fined ■ L 5, with the alternative* of < two months' imprisonment in default, "for using disgracefully insulting language about her Majesty the Queen." ' _.■ • There are about 3000 Chinese arid 2255' '. Polynesians scattered over Queensland ; the latter principally on the 'plantations along the seaboard, and the former on the northern gold fields. A number of vessels, employing. be^ tween 200 and 300 men, are engaged*. iir pearl fishing in Torres Straits." • One had qn bqard L.7OQQ worth of ftec/^ d§ .fiffi ...■. alone, . .,', ./ , V >',-"• ,; 1 Victoria has 68,506 miners, of whom 43,359 are Europeans, and 15,147 Chinese. ' Of . the; former, 27,026 iare engaged in alluvial, and 16,333 in quartz mining. Only 89 of the Chinese are quartz miners. The total value of the mining plant in the Colony is L 2,097,089. At the trial of a cattle-stealing case at Sydney, recently, on the jury briuging-in?^ a verdict of not guilty, the judge re?^ marked, f c V?ery well ; J entertain no doubt the prisoners are % not guilty, 'as you say so j but all I can .say is, that it.is one of the plainest cases I ever tried in the course of 35 years." ' ' '.' 'f: "' / St. .Mark's Ohuroh, Brown-hill* Ballarat, seems to be favored by the thieving' - fraternity. On. Sunday morning, when the Sunday school teachers arrived, previous to morning service, everything was ih disorder, and the clergyman's surplice,:/ with the comtminion table-cover, missing. This is the second robbery that has, been committed in the same ohurch wifhin a iew months. Qn the'prevlous occasion •the thieves took away all the Sunday^* . tsbholars' collections that bad for sometime been accumulating for the purpose ' ydi. increasing their library. ' i•• -' l \ The following account of the female labor-market in Ballarat appears in one of the local papers :— " Girls -from; about , fifteen years up to womanhood can occasionally get places as serVarits at 3s and 4s per week and found f,but. even these places are' like angels' visits— few and far betwee,n, lam aware that more is paid to some servants, but the^r number, ig

small compared with those getting the sum I have named and those getting none at all. Young women working as tailoresses get from 3s up to 10s per week, worUng ten hours and a half per day, to pNMMhemselves jfor which they have tose^Cas apprentices for one or two years, receiving no reward at all for their labor. Girls wishing to learn trades at any of our large establishments must serve three years with little or no remuneration, and when their time is out other; apprentices ?re, taken on in their E laces, and unless some of the regular ands are discharged to make room for them, they have to walk about idle, or rake out a miserable subsistence some other way— often by disgracing themselves and all connected with them. Girls with sewing machines, creditable workers, may walk Ballarat from one end to the other, inquiring at every shop every day for weeks at a stretch, and not get enough work to buy a single meal ; and they may sit in their homes with large bills in their windows, announcing the fact ' machine-sewing is done here, 1 until their hearts ache, without their doors being darkened by the presence of patrons. The fact is plain. There is not sufficient work even if the girls would do it for nothing. The consequence is, they have to live in comparative idleness: while the fathers are often to their wit's ends to know where to find bread to put in their mouths." The United Friendly Societies of Victoria appear to have been particularly successful in the establishment of dispensaries. The first was founded in the year 1869, at Emerald Hill, for which ■even Courts and Lodges combined to try the experiment. The Argus contains a summary of the proceedings, from which it appears that a subscription of Is per head for nearly 900 members, sufficed to defray the preliminary expenses, and a contribution of 3s 6d for the first quarter was levied from each person to cover the cost of medicines and their distribution. Fresh lodges, however, were enrolled, until in 1871 it was found desirable to reduce the subscription for the three months to If 6d, and now a further reduction is contemplated. The following is an explanation of the system : — Every . subscriber in exchange for the trifling quota which he contributes to the general funds, is entitled to a gratuitous supply of drugs for himself and his family, anas these drugs are purchased in the first instance of wholesale houses, which guarantee their purity, he can rely upon their genuineness. The services of a competent dispenser are also secured. Besides this another dispensary upon a similar system has been established in Melbourne, third in Collingwood, and another is about to be started at Richmoild; - Bnt why, oa the Argus observes, limit the co-operative system of the Friendly. Societies to the supply of drugs and surgical appliances 1 Why not extend it to the supply of the general necessaries of life? At all events the success that has attended these dispensaries in Victoria and elsewhere, should stimulate our own Societies to determine efforts in the same direction, or even to co-operate in securing good and wholesome articles of general consumption at wholesale prices and of the best quality.