VICTORIA.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 54, 31 January 1884, Page 2

VICTORIA.

(from our special correspondent.) (Ooncluded,) Melbourne, Jani 14,1884. Chinamen are generally regarded as amongst the outcasts of tne earth. The “Heathen Chinee” is locked upon as of 4 race unfit to associate with other human beings, while China itself suffers from the reproach as a county from which no good can come, except tea, and some of that not of the best. You will say that exceptions prove the rule. Well, be it so. I shall, however, give my exception in the person of a Mongolian rejoicing (and I suppose Chinamen do re« joice) in the name of Quong Tart, who recently forwarded to the Municipal Councils in New South Wales a petition praying for the restriction of the use of opium among his own countrymen. This philanthropist points in detail to the baneful effects of the narcotio, and adds that, in the event of its prohibition by law, “ there will be but little inducement for its consumers to come to this colony, while Chinese of a superior class will, in all probability, cast in their lot among us.” Out of the 91 Councils in that colony, a large number have promised to support Mr. Quong Tart. In my last I reported that new coal-fields have been recently developed in Victoria. One of them, during operations with a diamond drill, and at a depth of about 1000 feet is emitting what is called “ a peculiar gas,” which scientists here treat as a phenomenon. The gas ignites readily, exactly the same as that from the Makaraka well, emitting a flame nearly a foot in length at the end of a tube. Water rises to the top of the bore, and air bubbles agitate the surface similarly to the petroleum springs of your companies, only in this instance there is no appearance of oilj though it is highly probable that kerosine shale will be found at a greater depth. You will be surprised to hear that one of the parties on whose ground coal has been discovered has instituted proceedings against the offending parties for trespass. You are already familiar with the failure of the expeditions fitted out, a la George Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald, by the Argus and Age for the exploration of New Guinea. Capt. Armitt, of the former, was stricken with fever, and had to return, after having buried Professor Denton, one of his party i While Mr; George Ernest Morrison, as he delights td elongate his was stricken with arrows, and also had to return. The former has given to the world suchevidenc of his ability to undertake the work, in his writings, as makes it a matter for regret that his career should be so untimely stayed. But the latter’s account, which is now appearing in the Age, is one of the most comical, nursery-like records of foolery and incompetency I ever read. I have followed his narration, covering some weeks, which consists entirely of social adventures and mishaps—how he lost his tea and didn’t find his breakfast | how his men broke down and his horses knocked up ; but not a word about the country. How the Age could print such rubbish I cannot make out; while the lugabrious yarns about his “ new chum” party have afforded food for Punch for several issues.

Is it true that you have had such a dreadful earthquake as that reported in some of the New Zealand papers? The locality il fixed at Lake Te Anau, Otago; and it is said that the earth-waves were seen as well as felt | and so “ pronounced” (sic) were they that of two shearers walking aorou a l«vel piece of ground, one was hidden, by the intervening undulations, down to ths waist from the sight of his mate, only a short distance ahead! One describes the sight as resembling the waves on a stage when represented by a piece of doth kept rapidly in motion. The report oondudes that, although all this was taking place on land, the lake itself was not affected. Melbourne has been vitited by the fire-fiend as well as the country, and in both of which it has been demonstrated that well-supplied as the city and suburbs are said to be with material for extinguishment, the appliances are inadequate when once a good hold has been obtained. A large timber-yard in East Melbourne was totally destroyed last week, and the other day the Apollo Candle Works at Footscray nearly met with a similar fate, over £20,000 worth of property being destroyed before the element could be arrested. In the former instance the hose was short and faulty and the water pressure insufficient, while at the latter the water-supply was not obtained until after waiting some time. Allow me to congratulate your readers on at last having carried their point in favor of the bridge at the end of the Gladstone Road over the Turanganui river* I never could understand, except on the narrow grounds advanced by Mr. Rees, why there should be opposition to that bridge. But, from your columns, I perceive that that gentleman’s influence (such as it ever was) is largely on the wane. Personally, it is a matter of no moment to me, but, in the interests of Poverty Bay, it is cause for hearty congratulation. He is a dangerous man—one whose specious friendship and apparently sincere plausibility are means of much that is evil. His fame is known here, and one of his old victims thinks that you should hold a public fast and offer up prayers for the removal of such an enemy to the Colony of New Zealand.