VICTORIA.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 742, 11 September 1852, Page 3

VICTORIA.

We are in receipt of Melbourne papers to the 10th August. A bill styled the " Convicts Prevention Bill was passing through the Council, the second reading having been carried by 13 to 7, the Attorney General leading the opposition. Its clauses were stringently framed to meet the overpowering influx of British criminals via Van Diemen's Land, requiring all arrivals therefrom to produce satisfactory proof to an Inspector before landing, that they were entitled or free to come. Gold still continued to be sent down to Melbourne from the various diggings at Mount Alexander in immense quantities. On the 2nd August a private escort brought 34,676 ounces, in drays ; on the 6th a government escort brought 18.174 ounces on pack-horses ; and on the Bth a private escort brought 32,689 ounces, in drays. On the 9th the escort from Ballarat brought down 2533 ounces to Geelong and Melbourne, the largest quantity we have noticed for some months. The price of gold on the 9th was £3 4s. to .£3 4s. 3d. per ounce. Organised gangs of bushrangers haunted the Mount Alexander road, and very many robberies and outrages, including one murder, are reported in the papers before us. On the 31st July the ship Garland arrived, from Liverpool, with 364 immigrants ; on the 2nd August the Castle Eden and the Falcon arrived, one with 173 intermediate passengers, and the other with 317 passengers in the cabin, .intermediate, and steerage.