Australian Items.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 15, Issue 780, 21 April 1870, Page 3

Australian Items.

Sir Eobert Officer, one of the Salmon Commissioners, reports that he has seen salmon several times jump about in the Derwent. Once, when some dozen persons were looking from the front window of his house, several fish, their identity with the salmon to his mind beyond a doubt, were seen very distinctly leaping in the water. Sir Eobert (says the Hobart Town Mercury) in conjunction with other gentlemen, is shortly going to attempt capturing some of the fish by the use of a trammel net, so as to place beyond all doubt the fact of their being salmon in tho Derwent. Mr Barker, of Eosegarland, states that lie has seen salmon in the Derwent in great numbers. The common trout and salmon trout in the ponds are thriving excellently, and some small salmon have lately been turned out into the Eiver Plenty.

A writer in the Australasian says: —A mistake made at Sandridge same time ago was most amusing. An " agent who has received a commission," in other words a crimp, had captured two men and put them on board ship as able bodied sailors. When they awoke in the morning, 10, one was a soldier and the other an umbrellamaker. They refused to go to sea, and the soldier put on his uniform, and defied the skipper and all his works. The skipper gave them in charge, and the Williamstown Bench, for some sapient reason their, own, gave the six weeks' imprisonment. The " agent " who shipped drunken men, however, went his way rejoicing, and has, doubtless, been gathering able-bodied seamen like mulberries ever since. I thought that this " agent" system had been stopped, and that mercantile Jack was under new and admirable rules. It doesn't look like it.

A painfu' case of hardship consequent on mistaken identity is narrated by a late Wagga Wagga Advertiser, as taken frotn the lips of the victim. The entire narrative is very interesting, but we can only find room for the mam circumstances in a condensed form. Robert Murphy, a shepherd at Bimera Station, 40 miles from Bourke, was arrested about the 10th Oct., under the name of Campbell, on a charge of having murdered the brothers Pohlman, at Wagga Wagga, in March, 1888. He was indignant, and said ha had never been at Wagga Wagga in his life ; but in spite of his protestations he was taken to Bourke, where he was brought before the Bench, and remanded for eight d;)ys. On being again brought up, several witnesses, some of whom had come from long distances, swore to his being Robert Campbell, who was believed to be the murderer. Prisoner called a witness who swore that at the time of the murder he was at a station on !the Darling, 160 miles away. He wished the superintendent of the station to be called to prove the alibi, but this was not allowed. Murphy was then taken to Wagga Wagga, a journey of some hundreds of miles, which occupied four months, the account of the journey being a record of continued Buffering. He suffered from old wounds received while in the army, one of thorn being a bayonet wound near the groin. Delay was occasioned through his being several time 3 taken seriously ill on the journey. Once, believing himself dying, he asked for a clergyman, but his request was not granted. Several nights on the journey he was handcuffed to a black tracker, and his leg chained to a tree. He was occasionally treated with kindrmss by those under whose charge he was placed, but the reverse was generally the I case. The following extract will give some' idea of the style of the narrative : —" I had that day for a travelling companion a prisoner under committal for a cowardly and brutal assault on a woman, and as we went through the town of Orange this man was hooted by the people. The next day I started, again on horseback, for Bathurst —thirty-five miles. Arrived at night, and, the following morning Dr. Busby pronounced me unfit to travel, and ordered nourishing food. I was kept in Bathurst jail for thirteen days. On the fourteenth morning I was called up at 4 o'clock, and sent by coach in charge of a constable named Toohey, en route for Goulburn. I was kept tr .veiling all day, by coach and rail; arrivod at Groulburn late at night, and during the whole of the time was not allowed anything to eat or drink, except a few peaches and a bunch of grapes which were thrown into the carriage by some kind-hearted women at one of the railway stations. At an hotel on the Bathurstroad the constable breakfasted, but refused

to let me eat or drink, though I told hiai he might pay for it out of the money h# held belonging to me. A young womaa asked the constable what I was in custody for, and if she might not give me some-' thing to eat. The constable told her I was to have nothing, and that I was charged with murder. She smarted back as if a snake had bitten her, eyed me with horror, and retired. In a few moments the door was crowded with curious people, who seemed to look upon me as a wild beast." On the 22nd February, he arrived at Wagga Wagga in a state of exhaustion, and had to be carried to the jail. He succeeded in proving his innocence, and desired to return to Bourke, where he has a family ; but the authorities had no power to send him back again. A subscription was raised to assist him back to Bourke. We hear of a new industry in Yictoria, of rearing ostriches for their feathers. The bird will thrive on scrub with a sandy soil useless for sheep, a paddock of twenty acres keeping ten birds, which will yield an annual return of £2O.