SYDNEY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume X, Issue 615, 29 September 1858, Page 4

SYDNEY.

xne rouowing are the principal items brought by the Burnett. .'The Mail Service.—The Legislative Assembly have voted £50,000 a-year for ten years towards establishing a mail service between England and Australia via Panama. It is proposed to run this mail solely on the responsibility of the home country and Sydney, each guaranteeing , one half. Victoria it appears is doing the same _as regards the Ceylon route, thus there will he ere long perhaps a fortnightly communication bydney receiving the intelligence first by one route and Victoria by the. other. ■ New Gold FiELns.-N'ew diggings have been discovered -onilie Fitzroy River, Port Curtis, of

a character which arsrue well for their surpassing any hitherto known.' The accounts which have been brought to Sydney, during the last few days previously to the sailing of the Burnett, have created a good deal of excitement among those adventurous classes from which the " diggings " population is chiefly drawn. It would seem not only from the published experiences of those who have tried this new " Tom Tiddler s ground," but from the opinions of men of science, that this region is likely to prove one of the most productive of any yet discovered. Still the 'Herald' counsels caution, as it has so often happened that particular localities have been reputed highly auriferous which have subsequently turned out to be barely workable; all reports therefore coming from new gold-fields must be listened to with something of distrust. A very little time will tell their truthfulness.

The Empiue.—At present there exists in Sydney but one daily paper, Mr. Parkes having, after a most severe struggle to overcome the difficulties with which he has been surrounded, been at last compelled to stop the publication of the < Empire,' resign his seat as member for the North Riding of the County of Cumberland, and place his estate in the hands of the Insolvent Court. This unfortunate climax to an undertaking in which Mr. Parkes has spent upwards of seven of the best years of his life, can be but looked upon as a serious circumstance, affecting, as it must do to a certain extent, the political position of the colony ; for no one will doubt that the cessation for a time of a powerful liberal organ, just at the period when, as the representative of liberal opinions, it is so much wanted to assist the passing of the Electoral Bill in the Upper House, is nothing less than a calamity to the colony. Mr. Parkes has addressed his late constituents and the public through the columns of the ' Sydney Morning Herald.' The deepest sympathy for its proprietor is expressed on all hands. Many reports have been circulated as to who is likely to carry the 'Empire' on; but nothing at all definite has yet been arranged.