LATEST INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1098, 3 February 1872, Page 2

LATEST INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

j : Spiritism Seems lately to have infruded 5 itself into the Chinese camp, atßaHiaat^ { and produced a strange commotion of , ideas in the minds of tjie: Celestials." Ay Chinese named Ah Wang has been breaking a fan-tan bank by winning over.; L2pO: > | from the keeper, an expert playerat the game ; and the successful man asserts that he was incited to visit the establishment by a spirit that stayed with him, both in his sleeping and waking hours, for thelast week, telling him to go, and that Ke wbiild , win all themoney. The successful into seems to implicitly believe in the. phenomenon which he describes; and has. ; induced his victim of the, bank also tp' become a believer. Thfe i latter thinks that he rau3t have been in some way found wanting in, his attentions to Joss, in not having offered up to his hungry and; thirsty maw sufficient sucking-pig and gin and water, and we understand intends shortly to make a grand sacrifice for a fair wind on his continued "voyage?' ; The other man* with his L2OO, is about revisits ing the scenes, ipf-his youth. 7 The only drawback which Ah Chin experiences to the full enjoyment of his ill-gotten gainjsgthe belief that the black spirit wlro |o| kindly "put him on to the good thing" ' was no less a personage than— the devil. i Queensland is coming in to share with the Transvaal district at the Cape, the honors of its fields of precious stones. Sp> .' at least it would appear from a story told to, us last evening, which runs thus :~- When the (Governor Blackall was anchored off one of the northern ports of Queens- » land, a gentleman came on boar^and sawMr Foord, the weU-knowii Jfi^: _ iurer. He showed him some specimens bf stone which" Mr Foordp^onounced to be of some value, and offered^ to-brina them to Melbourne to have them testecuf The gentleman assented, and at the same time requested that if they were proved to be of value they might be set for him, find forwarded to his address,- which, is at present kept secret. When Mr Foord arrived in Melbourne, he at onceisaw Mr .\ Spink, the lapidary, who pronounced the , stones to be opals of great value. The

smaller stone, which has been set ci a ring, is esthnated as worth between L3OO and L 40 0; while on the larger, made into a gentleman's breast brooch, Mr Spink says it is impossible to set a value, it being, he thinks, the largest opal ever found, within his knowledge. This discovei/ if confh.ned by after facts, is bound to make a stir amongst our speculative birds of passage.