Page 3 Advertisements Column 4

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 802, 21 December 1853, Page 3

ia value about five times ns much ns the goods imported from Melbourne to ibis colony.

Statistics of the Colony for the year 1812, compiled by Mr. Archer, the now Registrar General, had just been published by order of the Council. According to these Returns, the population on the 51st of December 1851 was 85,550 ; Births in 1852, 5,756: Deaths, 2,!05/. ; leaving a surplus of 1,651 : —Arrivals, 91.664; Departures, 51,058; leaving a surplus of 65 627. The total population on tin* s!st of December. 1852. is thus made out in be 148.627. But the Argus, by the addition of arrivals overland fiom South \ustralia and New 'South Wales, and of arrivals by colonial vessels more than were reported, raisis the total on the 51st December last to 175,552; and bringing down i s calculations to nearly the present date, estimates the probable population on the Ist of November, 1855, at 226,863.

idm rapidity with which a destructive fire in Flinders Street had followed on the conflagration in Collins’Street, of which we published an account a few weeks since, together with two or three alarms occasioned by fere which, had the danger not beenspeeddy discovered might have proved very serious, had rouse ’the eiti/.ensofMclbonrne tna sense oft lie necessity of immediate precautionary efforts. A movement was in progress '"to form a Volunteer Company (with tin* permission of the Government) after the style of those in the United Stales, to In* ready on ail occasions to give their assistance in ease of fire.” A subscription had been set. on loot to purchase •Gmo or two first class engines complete, with a sufficient, quantity of.sue!ion liose, books, ladders, buckets, fire-caps, uniforms, c.” A preliminary list, advertised in the Ar(jus of the 21st nil., includes upwards of forty subscriptions of 601. each.

The real value of the allow'd discovery of an available Cor.l Field in Victoria was sill! matter of dispute. Souic believe!; many fcioubled.

The promised Exhibition of the Victoria Industrial Society was held on (lie 22nd nil. ; but it proved a sad failure- As the Argus—regretfully, and, no doubt, too indy—observes, “ The people of Melbourne are too much absorbed in the avocations of the moment to regard their interests in its true light.” Tho Exhibition, "instead of being, as it ought to be in this young and losing colony, a brilliant show of its natural and industrial products, was a display of little more than bare tallies, an Exhibition tupported bv some half dozen exhibilo s, ano at trading some two score visitors. 'Hie Shipping Intelligence in the daily papers of the 2Uh nil. presented under the head “Arrived” the unusual word “AT/,” the 25rd having been the first day for months in which not a single ship entered Hobson’s Bay. The Band of the 53th Regiment will perform in the Government Lawn, to-morrow, Thursday bond to (5 o’clock, PROGRAMME. Overture Op —" Nonna” . * . Haper. Melange Op. “ The Daughter of St. Mark” Baife. Duetto Op.—‘ Kgilrta di Provenza” . . Mercadante. Polonaisa Op—“ Ceitro il Grande'’ . . Jnllien. Waltz—•• Mandolina’’ .... Butter. Qi;. t ,kille— •* i he Queen of the May” . . Jutlien. Polks—•* The Rosa" ... . Kuihner. Chaunt—•• Dos Cortes” * “ -