AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume I, Issue 37, 3 January 1879, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

(plsu mie3s agency.) Melboukne, Doc. 24. The events of the week have been without any special interest. By the time this reaches New Zealand the Embassy Commissioners will bo on their way to England. A faro* well banquet was given in the Town Hall last Friday, and was attended by seven hundred person 3. The tickets were 10s. 6d. each, including the Railway fares. As a consequence a large number of persons, availed thoaisovles of the opportunity of making a trip to Melbourne from the most remote parts of the Colony at such a cheap rate. The railway pass question raised such an outcry that a hurried Cabinet meetiug was held, and Ministers gave out that the amount of the railway fares would-be paid conjointly by" the Ministry out of their private means. Berry made a fiery speech at the banquet as to what would ba the result if the will of the. people was not curried out It was a revolutionary sort of schome, and was enthusiastically cheered by the meeting. A farce is being played, as a sort of set-off to the embassy proceedings. The whole of the doings of lierry and party ara being paraded by a negro politican, very much washed, who has been a nuisance, as a sort of popular agitator. The man is named David Henderson, I and is generally called Henderson '

Africanus. He is now designated the third Archdoacon, and has been banquetted on tlie samg nifeht as Berry, furnished \vilh ji^pyatiß secretary and new clothes, in addition to the credentials to the Sscretary of State. Most people thought thejoke a capital oue, but that it h^di* ' now been carried far enough, buf 1 ' others persisted in carrying it further, and sending the man home to England in the same steamer with Berry and Pearson. Henderson is afflicted with vanity, and is being fooled to the very top of his bent. Sir William Jervois is at present in Melbourne on the subject of defences - --- There is no intelligence of the Kelley gang, and no trace of their moveinems. There are nil sorts of rumors daily; but few 'have " any foundation in fact. Martin Wibridge, late carpenter of the Avoca, under remand for stealing five thousands sovereigns from that vessel, has escaped from the custody of the police. He was taken by detectives to a Jonelypart of Gippsland district to point out the plant of sovereigns ; and although three officers were present he contrived to put them off their guard, and escaped into the bush, and has not yet been found. There have been a large number of accidents and offences lately. A man named John McKoan, of drunken habits aud violent temper, has been commited for trial for murdering his infant child at Hollingwood by fracturing its skull. A man and woman were killed on Friday night, being run over near Brighton^ fche .woman was frightfully Js*#gltd. A fire at Emerald HUl^irdyed.thr^e hotues on Friday nSgnt. On the same day a vejfy^Htructivo storm, occurred at iihtitei'n, lovelling several dwellings jand damaging many more. Very few houses in the township escaped. Bachelder's panorama was destroy* ed by fire at Deniliquin. '