AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 32, 6 February 1872, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

The Melbourne miut is to be opened this month. At Talbot, Victoria, tho thermometer lately ranged 150° iv the sun. The Queensland Parliament recently sat for 24 hours at a stretch. Pleuro - pneumonia is spreading unchecked among the herds of Victoria. The cost of the Melbourne bolaaieal gardens is £3000 per annum. A Victorian bushman has cured asnake- . bite by washtug it in soda-water. A Victorian sportsman recently shot 203 quail in one day. The pigs in New South Wales are reported to have been attacked by a uew species of c-ntozoon. The cabinet and chair makers in Melbourne threateu a strike for an iucrease of wages. Angora goats have been successfully bred near Albury. Their fleeces are worth about 10s. each. Some districts in New South Wales are reported to be actually " bursting with rich pastures." In the cose of a boy killed by lightning iv South Wales, the hair was burned off the back of his head. During 1871, £4900 was placed by bushmeu in the savings bank connected with the Bushman's Home in Adelaide. Diphtheria, fever, and "sunstroke have been making havoc ..among the juvenile population at Bendigo.

Harvest hands are badly wanted ia several districts of Victoria. As much as £3 a- week and board has been paid. The • proprietor of a boiling-down establishment, Victoria, is also preparing a concentrated essence of meat. The "unemployed " h;ive now almost disappeared from liobart Town, findm** stone-breaking too hard to work. According to Mr. Duffy, the Victorian Legislative Council costs the colony nearly £400 per sitting. 42,000 persons travelled by the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway on Christmas and Boxing Days. A young harvest laborer in Victoria has died from drinking cold milk aud water while heated. During the week ended January 16, the receipts of gold for coinage purposes amounted to 32,850 ounces. The Colony of Victoria *pays between £7000 and £8000 annually to keep the squatters' sheep free from scab. The line of telegraph has been cojqpleted from Brisbane to the mouth of the Norman River, a distance of 1455 miles. Great bushfires, one of which burned for a week, have occurred near Moamo, N.S.W. The transcontinental telegraph in Australia is being erected at the rate of ten miles a day. A man named Vprtell crossed Sydney harbor on Boxing Day in a tub drawn by four geese. Tho caterpillars and mowing machines are trying which will first level tho crops near Buuinyong. During the last municipal year in Melbourne, 56,863 loads of sweepings, &c, and 21,896 dead animals were removed from the streets. The settlers in Northern Queensland propose to peparate from Queensland and form a new colony, to be named Capricornia. An experiment is about to be made to ascertain if cotton can be profitably grown on the banks of the Hunter River, N.S.W. At Castlemaiue, the believers in spiritism sometimes obtained prescriptions for their ailments from a deceased doctor through a lady medium. On one occasion one of the faithful presented a prescription to a local chemist, who made up the medicine. "Do you know, madame, what the effect of this mixture will bs ? " inquired tho druggist, " because," added he, "my belief is, that, if you take it, you will to-morrow morning be covered with an eruption of blue spots." The lady abstained. In a private letter from Sydney a | gentleman states: — "I think it likely that a team of riflemen wil! be sent to England next year composed of New i South Welshmen and Victorians. Some correspondence has passed between the two rifle associations, and Victoria is promising to assist all in its- power. I believe an appeal will be made to the respective Governments to assist by a grant of money. An Australian team is eagerly looked for at home, and besides meeting with a warm reception from their brethren in arms in the old country, they would take a good deal of beating." A Well-knoWxY Victorian squatting family have lately developed an aptitude for shipwreck, which would render them unacceptable ft-llow - passengers, and dangerous customers for the marine insurance companies. Ooe of them, with his wife, returning to Victoria by the Peninsular Company's steamers, was a passenger by the Rangoon, and their, personal belongings went under water off the Cadda rock. Their heavy luggage and furniture were on board the TJnderty, of tin: loss of which we had news last mail. When the Sussex was reported off Cape Otway, said tho lady, " Well, something has reached us at last." But lupk was against them still, and the last of their English purchases are now rolling about somewhere in the surf near the Barwon Heads. For remainder of news see fourth page.

Somebody has written a book entitled What shall my son be ? Upon which some one replies — If the boy is as bad as tbe book, the chances are that he will be hanged. Upwards of 2,000,000 people, it is stated, bave left Ireland in twenty years, 1851 to 1871, of whom about a million and a quarter, or nearly 63 per cent, left in tbe first decade, and uearly 38 per cent, within the last ten years. This gives an average annual emigration over the whole twenty years of 100,000 souls. To Get Rid ov Grassho_peus.-— A correspondent of the Australasian writes: — In (I think)lß47 I planted a quantity of the blue (not the white) larkspur in my garden on South terrace, Adelaide; and although the adjacent park land was entirely denuded of grass, no vegetable, fruit, or flower on ray ground was injured ; whilst the dead carcases of the insects clearly manifested that they ha 1 made an entrance, and from some cause died there. The Fishes of our Skas. — The preparations for the production of an illustrated work ou the fishes of our seas, by the officers of the Colonial Museum, are progressing favorably. We bave seen the lithographs of the fisb, executed by Mr. Buchanan, and they are clear and faithful outlines that will be most useful to a beginner in the study of ichthyology, and will enable him to discover the names of any specimens which may come before ' him. There will be twelve plates, giving outlines of fifty fish, all of which, with only one or two exceptions, are available as food. — Post. A Remedy against Flies. — A little very simple knowledge would go a great way in warm weather. Here are a party of amateur sportsmen coming home in disgust on account of mosquitoes, and there are thousands of stay-at-homes who find life almost unendurable on any terms for flies. If either party knew it, carbolic acid is the sovereign remedy for all their troubles. A few drops evaporated in a room or poured upon the clothes will keep the winged pests at a safe distance; and if the pure crystalised acid is used no great annoyance will result to human being. Restaurant keepers ought to know this, and keep the swarms of flies away from their windows, where they settle and buzz to the torment of passers-by as also to themselves. The New York Tribune mentions that " a curious memorial of the great fire has been brought from Chicago. Among the ruins of the Western News Company's establishment, where an immense stock of periodicals and books were reduced to ashes, there was found a single leaf of a quarto Bible charred around the edges. It contained the first chapter of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, which opens with the following words : — ' How doth the city sit solitary that wa3 full of people ? how is she become as a widow ? she that was great among the nations and princess among the provinces ! how is she become tributary ? She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks ; among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her.' And that was the only fragment of literature saved from the News Company's great depot."