Australian Items.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1540, 9 January 1874, Page 74

Australian Items.

Death of an old Colonist. Mr Thomas Herbert Power, one of the few remaining colonists whoso arrival in Victoria dates before 1840, died at his residence in Hawthorn between 8 and 9 o'clock on the morning of November 28. A few days previous he had been seized with an attack of colic, which resulted in inflammation of the bowels, and notwithstanding the active measures employed by his medical advisers, death eventually ensued. In the early days of the colony, when Melbourne was a small village, Mr Power carried on business with success. His fortunes increased with the growth of the colony, and for many years before his death he had retired from commercial life, having realized a handsome fortune by steady application to business. Two sous of the deceased gentleman are leading members of the firm of Powers and Rutherford in this city, while a third is engaged in pastoral pursuits in Gipps Land. A Veteran Compositor.

The funeral of Mr Robert Fergie, who was the oldest typo in the colony, took place yesterday (says the Age of the 27th November), at theKew cemetery. The deceased arrived in Tasmania in 1832, where he was as the first free man in the printing trade in the Free Colonist newspaper office, Hobart Town. In 1833 Mr Fergie went to Sydney, and was employed on the Sydney Morning Herald. From Sydney he went to England, but returned to the colonies in 1853, having purchased a brig, in which he and his family sailed from the old country for Vtctoria. Through some misfortune, he was compelled soon after his arrival to sell his vessel, and return to the printing trade, which he followed up to the time of his recent illness, which terminated fatally. Mr Fergie was employed successively at the Argus, the Government printing office, and the Herald, and was a compositor on this journal for the last ten years. The deceased was held in high esteem by his fd'ow-printers, as he possessed one of the kindest and was one of the most unselfish of men.

Explosion of a Rum Cask. The Windsor correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald writes:—" On Friday last, a man named Henry Gunn, at Richmond, had his leg fractured in three places below the knee, the thigh severely bruised, and other parts of the body contused, by the bursting of a rum cask. Gunn is a butcher in the service of Mr Onus, and went to bore a hole in the cask. The auger generally usedToiv, such purposes not being at hand, Gunn unsuspecting made a piece of iron wire red hot, and proceeded to make the aperture. When the heated wire was about penetrating to the inner wood, the cask—which must have been full of generated gas—suddenly exploded, bursting into fragments, and causing the injuries above enumerated. The report was heard fully half a mile off." Scratching an Outsider. A good story comes from Melbourne. The officials in one of the public offices got up a sweep on the Cup—fifty members at a pound each, and the whole to go to the first horse. The entries at the time were scratched down to fifty-one, and as uo one cared to take two chances, it was decided to leave out one of the outsiders that stood no chance. The task of elimination was left to a clerk who was supposed to have a superior knowledge of the turf, and he struck out—Don Juan Alligator Eggs. A Queensland paper says : —A very interesting discovery has been made on Mr Mackay's station, Morinish. On the banks of a creek running into the Fitzroy, some of the station employes came across an alligator's nest, which on examination was found to contain the extraordinary number of sixty eggs. Our informant states that the eggs were addled, or in a putrified state, emitting a disagreeable odour, which may be accounted for, as the nest was partially submerged. The river has been very high at. Morinish during the last few days, and on Monday its rise was very rapid, an increase of seven feet in height being observable during one hour.