AUSTRALIAN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 219, 6 November 1880, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN.

StDNBY, October 30. The Daily Telegraph's specip.l reporter wires that the general idea at Bormague relative to the disappearance of Lumount, Young, and party is that there has been foul play. It is thought that tho murders were committed at sea and the bodies dropped overboard with atonei attached. This idea owes its origin to the unnecessary weighty? the stones remaining in the boat, which ars too heavy for mere ballast, ..also to tho halyards and other running rigging being missing from tho boat. The public banquet to the Dnke of Manchester lash night waa a great success. The speeches, however, were merely conventional. The prospect* at Temora continue unvaryingly good. ' Raefiß? promises to be of importance, but th?r« is still a lack of water, and nsonevless diggers have no show. The report of the Bank of New South Wales recommends the payment of a dividend of 15 per cent, and a bonus of 2J por cent, £5000 to be carried to the reserve fund, and £2500 carried forward. Boom ApstBAMA.. The BUbjecfc of the trans-continental railway to Port Darwin was brought forward in tha Assembly ou the 28 th Octobor, and the hope waa expressed that the Premier would consider it during tho recess. Tho Premier B aid be waa convinced that the only feasible plan.during this generation would be by the concession of land grants to capitalists willing to undertake the construction. A message from the.Gorernor has recommended the reduction of the limit of the jurisdiction of the Local Courts Bill from £500(o £400, and granting appeal to the superior courts on questions of fact and law, thus complying with the strongly expressed desire of the House. Victoria. ' In Ned Kelly's trial, the chief witness waa Constable M'lntyre whose evidence was identical with what he gave in. th«. former proceedings and was unskaken by crossexamination. The general evidence traced Kelly's career from 1 1878;. .The" « rial lasted till 11 p.m., and being then unfinished, the jury were locked up all night. On tho following day it was continued and when it terminated, the jury were twenty minutes absent and then found a verdict of guilty The judge was repeatedly ■ interrupted by the prisoner while passing sentence. Tho latter assumed} the role of an injured martyr and when removed teemed quite unconcerned. Sergeant, the caterer for tho Exhibition, offers -to withdraw his action against Mr Munro for the recovery of £5000 provided concessions are made to him. Tho matter is likely to b« settled. QUBKMLiXD. The Council has so altered tho Pacific Islanders Bill as to ho likely to causa its rejection in the Assembly. The Police Magistrate on Thursday Island reports that tho Polynesians attacked tbt brig [Lady Desison. Tho erov found the body of a European on an island ia the Charles Hardy group, also a ship's boat broken up. They subsequently found a camp where four men had apparently remained for sovoral days. Probably they were a wrecked crew or New Caledonian escapees. The Polico Magistrate at Cooktown reports to the Colonial Secretary, after an official -visit in the Conflict to the scene of the recent murder of Chinese at New Guinea, that be saw on one beach quite 2000 natives. He states that he has a serious opinion that the density of the native population in New Guinea roust always oppose a great obstacle to its occupation for European colonisation. He found no vestige of anything belonging to the captured junk.