AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2488, 11 March 1881, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

MR JAMES SERVICE ON VICTORIAN PROGRESS.

Mr Service was entertained at a farewell banquet, at Maldon. In the evening a public meeting was held, and _Mr Service spoke on a variety of topics. He referred to his departure, and to the constitutional and legal Government, as compared with the personal form of Government now being carried out, and also alluded to several matters carried out by the will of Ministers that should have received Parliamentary sanction. He showed that, while all classes of property depreciated in value, this had not been made such a fine country for a working man. Still, he thought there was a good future before the colony, if people insisted on a high standard of honesty and' integrity in their public men. He said Victoria was not going so fast as neighboring colonies, and at the same rate as now would soon he outstripped by New South Wales, which was making very material progress, as shown by Mr Haytc>'’s figures. He also referred at length to the interchange of commodities between the colonies. A TERRIBLE CRIME. At the Central Criminal Sessions, Wm. Brown, farmer, Yappabrush, in the Manning River district, was found guilty of outraging IPs daughter Anne, 12 years of age, and sentenced to death by the presiding judge, Sir William Manning, without hope of mercy. The case was one of a most horrible nature, and was made far more repulsive by the fact that the principal witnesses for the Crown were the prisoner’s own children. After a lengthened retirement the jury returned into Court, and in the midst of a profound silence, returned a verdict of guilty. In reply to the question whether he had anything to say why the sentence should not be passed on him the prisoner indulged in a series of accusations against his four children, on whose evidence he was convicted, and said they “ should be ranged beside him on the scaffold when the rope was being put round his neck, and the scene would be represented by the public press,” The Judge passed the sentence of death without holding out any hope of reprieve. A MAN’S SKULL SMASHED IN WITH AN AXE. Shoalhaven, March 3. Information was received by the police of the skeleton remains of a man lying between Jervis Bay, Tamarang, and the Braidwood Road, not far from the sawyer’s track, near Pepper’s selection. The police proceeded to the spot, about 13 miles from Nowra, and found all the bones complete ; the skull was broken apparently with an axe. The body must have been lying there about three months. The inquest proved beyond a doubt that the unfortunate man was murdered by an axe, as the mark can be distinctly seen where the sharp blade entered the skull and a second blow appears to have been given at the same time, but with the back part of the axe, thus smashing in the skull close to where the blade entered. The body was found in a small brush where there are no overhanging trees, and the remains of a camp is visible made of buddawang ferns, which had been cut with a knife. A verdict of wilful murder was returned against some person or persons unknown. The police are on the alert. SNAKE BITE. A lad named Arthur Stergiss, at Goulburn, in the employ of Mr Badgery, living with his parents near Lake Bathhurst, while shepherding, was bittpn in the calf of the leg by a brown snake. Assistance was promptly secured, and a ligature placed round his leg. The boy’s father scarified the punctures, and applied ammonia, also administering ammonia internally. The lad was afterwards brought into Goulburn, and placed under the care of Dr Morton. The symptoms of poisoning still give much anxiety.