AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 44, 25 November 1871, Page 3

AUSTRALIA.

A new Chinese temple is about to he erected at Castlemaine. The hay harvest around Melbourne is expected to become general at the end of the present month’. At the District Court, Melbourne, a groom was fined £lO for slashing a hojse that had broken one of its legs, thirty times with an axe. The finances of New South Wales are reported to lx in a flourishing condition. Several fatal cases of pleuro-pneumo-nia have occurred among the cattle at Kilmore. A Melbourne paper states that the legal profession in Victoria is quite overdone. Several of the flour mills in Melbourne have ceased working owing to the low price of flour. Strong hopes are entertained that diamonds will yet he found in the washdirt on the Tasmanian goldfields. Considerable progress has been made with the construction of the southern breakwater at Newcastle. Cheering intelligence has been received in Australia from the goldfields in New Caledonia. Six hundred men are now employed in the Peak Downs Copper Mine, Queensland, and the number will shortly be increased to 700. Plumbago has been discovered near Fairfield, N.S.W. Sheep and cattle have been dying by thousands in Queensland owing to a long-continued drought. Silver mining is growing in importance at the Gympie diggings, Queensland. Owing to the low state of the public finances it is proposed to make the office ofSpeaker in the new Tasmanian Parliament an honorary one. The speculators at Sandhurst now spend the day in sleeping and loafing, and night in gambling and swindling. Gangs ofeoiners and bank note forgers infest the outskirts of Ballarat. The Mormons in Melbourne are building a small settlement at Footscray. A Land Tenure Reform League has been formed in Melbourne. A large number of working men in Brisbane are unable to find employment. A company with a capital of £50,000 in £1 shares, is beiug formed to prospect the Echuca Plains. It is expected that telegraphic communication between Melbourne and London will be established in three or four months. The Tasmanian Government have promised to introduce a Drainage Bill next session. A chapel for the 40 or 50 Chinese converts in Melbourne is to be erected in Little Bourke street, at a cost, including the ground,.of £IOOO. The prospects of the goldfields in the north of Tasmania are improving. The Alfred Dock, at Williamstown, is to be extended 50 feet to seaward, at a cost of £26,000. The export of grapes from Victoria to England has been mooted, and is viewed with favor. More than 1000 of the unemployed are working at the Government stroke at North Carlton, Melbourne, and their number is daily increasing. Some of the suburban Crown lands round Melbourne have been soldat£2ooo an acre. At Larra, Victoria, a boy fell down dead, after running a race of 100 yards with another boy. The Zavistowski Sisters are said to be very much dissatisfied with the financial result of their visit to Melbourne. At Clunes, a child has been “ accidentally” killed by its drunken father lying on it. 150 candidates have entered for the public examination at the Sydney University. At Adelaide, a large public meeting passed resolutions in favor of compulsory education, without the Bible. Several cabmen have left Melbourne

for Sandhurst, driving their cabs all the way.

At a pigeon match at Flemington some good shooting was made, only three birds escaping out of 150. ' Two mining companies at Castlemaine are known by the names respectively of “ North Dead Cat,” and “ Central Dead Cat.”

A return presented to the Victorian Assembly shows the cost of drafting bills since the Constitution Act came into operation, in 1856, to be £9,798. The total number of entries for the various competitions at the forthcoming meeting of the Victorian Rifle Association is 1,281. Besides these, a very large number of post entries will be made on the ground. The Corporation Dog Inspector in Melbourne has received 7s a day for 36 days spent in clearing the streets of stray dogs. The working of many of the mines at Sandhurst is greatly retarded by the scarcity of labor.

For striking an Englishman a bench of Magistrates at Geelong sentenced a man to a month’s imprisonment. The same bench immediately afterwards fined another man 40s, or a week’s imprisonment in default, for a murderous assault on a poor hardworking Chinaman. The Victorian goldfields are reported to be now yielding more steady returns, and to have brighter prospects than for many years past. T. T. Roper, head-master of the California Gully, Victoria, common school, has been cast in £25 damages and costs for injuring a girl, one of his pupils, by striking her with a cane on the hand. A new quartz goldfield, believed to be very rich, has been discovered in Victoria, in the vicinity of the Grampians and Victoria Ranges, at a spot called the Black Range. It is expected that about twenty persons will leave Victoria on the eclipse expedition, if the necessary funds can be obtained. The expedition is to start, if at all, on the 20th inst. The Municipal Corporation of Sydney have passed a resolution to the effect that no salaries shall be paid to the city auditors at the end of the present year A Queensland squatter has fenced in a piece of scrub thirty-two miles in circumference, containing wild animals that damage his run. This monster trap has cost £4OOO. Lady Edith Fergusson, the lately deceased wife of the Governor of South Australia, was the second daughter of the late Marquis of Dalhousie, and was only in her 32nd year. The wedding cake at the marriage of Mr Alfred Nation and Miss Mary Aitken, Melbourne, was eight feet in circumference at the bottom, and three feet nine inches in height. The stand was of silver. The proprietor of the “ Goulburn Herald” has introduced the co-operative princ pie into his office, giving his workment a share of the profits. It is reported that in all probability Viscount Canterbury will remain in Victoria for the next two years. Though his term of office will soon expire, it is said the powers of Downing street will extend the time of Lord Canterbury’s governorship. The “ Warranambool Examiner” reports that a Mrs Wilson, of Koroit, was suffering from rheumatism, and whilst a young girl was engaged in rubbing the back of the patient with kerosene, a blaze of fire exhibited itself on the patient, who suffered severely for a short time. Medical aid was obtained, and she was soon out of danger. The “ Ballarat Courier” says :—Another big coach load of rushers went off from Cobb’s Corner, for Sandhurst on Wednesday morning, and the whole Corner adjourned to see the phenomenon. Instead of throwing old slippers after the voyagers, three or four dishonored cheques drawn by some of them were flouted before their eyes, and the eyes of the sympathetic host of on-lookers.”