AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Patea Mail, Volume III, Issue 289, 23 January 1878, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

The following items of Australian news were received by the Alhambra Which has arrived at the Bluff : MELBOURNE. January 16. The present crisis is all engrossing topic. Yesterday a solicitor applied to the Chief Justice in chamber for a mandamus to compel the Assistant Registrar of the County Court to issue a summons. The officer said be bad been instructed by the Crown Lands Department not to issue any summonses. The Chief Justice said he bad no discretion in the matter, and granted a rule for mandamus. Upon Government being informed of this step they once dismissed all the Registrars and Assistant Registrars, so it is now impossible to biing any case before the County Court, the Judges having previously been suspended. A number of Acts of Parliament are now wholly or in part inoperative owing to the persons appointed to administer them having been dispensed with. The Governor (Sir G. Bowen) is absent in a neighbouring colony. His absence has been much commented on already. The effects of the crisis is being felt in business circles, while the greatest misery is caused. Several large employers of labor will be forced to reduce their establishments. The question has been referred to from the pulpits. Government intend to revert to the system in force prior to 1862, and to make payments on the authority of the Assembly alone, and send them as an Appropriation Bill to the Council at Leisure.

In Riverina and other parts of New South Wales the heat has been intense —killing birds and animals. There is no grass and very little water anywhere in the country. The Hon Neil Black’s sale of pure bred cattle, at Mount Moorat, realised £10,710. The gold yield last year shows a falling off of 144,421 ounces, as compared with the previous year. The number of miners has also fallen off. The total at the end of December was 38,096.