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VICTORIA.

Under the new Land Act any one can take up and occupy any area of unalienated land up to 320 acres, at the rate of £1 per acre, having ten years in which to pay the purchase money. The only conditions are that the selector shall himself occupy his allotment forhis own use and benefit, and make certain improvements within a specified time. Parliament will in all probability reassemble about the middle of February. Before that time the Cabinet will to some extent be reconstructed, as the Treasurer and Minister of Public Works have at present no seats in Parliament. The finances of the colony are in a most satisfactory condition. A balance of over £200,000 will, it is expected, be carried over to the credit of the current year. The weather has recently been very oppressive, the thermometer reaching to 108 in the shade, but the harvest promises to be abundant. There is a great demand for "'labour of every description; wages are higher than they have been for a long time, and all immigrants meet with speedy employment immediately upon their arrival. Erom various causes the last clip of wool will be short. According to the moat careful calculations, it is anticipated that the yield for the present season will ,be 37,000 bales less thau that of the preceding one. The Greswich- Advertiser ia credibly informed that rust in a mild form has made its appearance among the wheat crops between Spring Hill and Newlyn. Its informant, a farmer at the latter place, anticipates considerable, loss therefrom. The appeal made to the public on behalf of the family of the Eev. Mr. Hill, murdered while discharging the duties of his office, has been nobly responded to. By the exertions chiefly of the ministers of the "Wesleyanbody, the sum of £28 L 9 95.10 d. has been realised by contributions made all over the colony. This sum, together with the £2500 voted by the Parliament, will be handed over to trustees, and invested in colonial securities. The interest will be devoted to the education of the children, amongst whom, when they come of age, the principal will be equitably divided. Various rumors are afloat that there will shortly be an exodus of Victorian celebrities. Sir James Palmer, Mr Higinbotham and Mr Fellows are spoken of as likely to pay a visit to the mother country, but with what foundation is not known. Mr "Wardell, the Inspector G-eneral of Public Works, has, in consideration of long service and impaired health, obtained a year's leave of absence, and will proceed to Kngland by the outgoing mail steamer. During his absence the duties of his oflice will be performed by Mr Thomas Higinbotham, the Engineer-in-chief of Victoria. The Melbourne Herald ot 29th ult. says: —A letter received from India by the last mail says an attempt to grow coffee on a large scale in South Australia is shortly about to be made by an Indian capitalist of great experience in coffee planting in India and elsewhere. Agents from this gentleman are expected to arrive by the next mail, when, should their reports prove favorable, application will be at once made to the South Australian Government for a large tract of land on which to establish the plantation. It is said that should Australia not prove a favorable field of enterprise Fiji will be visited. Harvesting operations are still being vigorously carried on in the Mount Moriac district, says the GeeUmg Advertiser^ and will probably continue to be so for some time to come, as many of the crops appear to be very late. The appearance of the homesteads is much more cheering than seen for years. As far as could be observed from the road, there is not a | farmer in the district but can boast of having at least one large rick of hay in his yard, and many have three, four, or five of these signs of prosperity. In several cases fields of wheat present a rather curious aspect. The grain in some spots has ripened more quickly than in others. Thus patches have been reaped in the centre and at the sides of what are still, and will be for a week or two, standing crops. Notions of enjoyment differ, but to hear of a girl of thirteen years found in the street at midnight in company with five or six others coolly smoking cigars and stopping every young man they met, defending herself by saying she was enjoying her Christmas holidays, is rather unique. Such, however, was the case at the Melbourne watchhouse on Monday, when a well-dressed respectable-looking girl was brought up charged with insulting behaviour, which consisted in stopping persons in the the street. As she waß unknown to the police, and in consideration of its being Christmas time, she was discharged with a caution. Speaking of the rashness of mining speculators, and the impatience for results exhibited by investors, the Pleasant Greek News observes: —" There is scarcely a shareholder in any of the rich claims at Pleasant Creek who has not passed through the ordeal of hoping against hope ; scarcely one but would at some period or other have sold his interest' for a song;' and yet, partially because they had staying power, and principally because they had not the power of effecting sales, they hold interests in the richest quartz claims of Victoria. If care in speculation be induced, the present panic will be the most profitable circumstance that could happen to the colony. It is absurd to suppose that a gold-field can be developed in a hurry, and the effort to do so is as invariable a loss to the district as a lobs to those who embark in mining." The strike of the Ballarat plasterers is at an end, and the men have agreed to return to work on the old terms. The strike lasted some sixteen days, says the Star, during which time forty members of the Plasterers' Society haye been un-

employed, besides about twenty laborers, and many carpenters and painters. The loss of wages, especially at this season, has been very severely felt by the wives and families of many of the men deprived of work, and men, too, such as the laborers, painters, and carpenters, who : had nothing whatever to do with the origin of the dispute. It is estimated that during the strike there has been a direct loss in wages alone of £1600, a sum which must represent a loss of comfort, to say nothing more, by no means pleasant. \ That "two' of a trade never agree ; appears to be as applicable to the Celestial members of the Flowery Land as to the grosser barbarians among whom j they deign temporarily to reside. It seems that two Chinamen, says the Ararat Advertiser, carry on the tea trade in the Ararat camp, and one, desirous of a more extended trade than his opponent, wisely reduced the price of a pound of tea from 3s 6d to 3s. Trade flowed in upon him, while in an equal ratio it ebbed from the dearer grocer till he could stand it no longer, so, arming himself with a formidable butcher's chopper, in the dead of night he visited his enemy's abode, and having induced him, by making a hideous noise at his door, to come out, he, withoutany parley, at once proceeded to cut him down. Fortunately for the cheap tea merchant he raised his arm to protect his head, and received the blow on his wrist. The protection of the law was sought, and the delinquent summoned. He did not appear, however; nor, apparently, did the magistrates think his presence necessary, as they heard the evidence against him in his absence. The assault was clearly proved, but the magistrates —probably softened by the forgiving season of the year — only fined the wouldbe assassin 205., or three days' imprisonment. The Oeelong Advertiser states that considerable damage was done to the late wheat crop in Bellarine by the hot winds last week. Where there was every prospect of a good yield there will be hardly suflicient to pay expenses through the premature ripening of the grain. Some of it in fact the farmers have determined not to cut at all, as it will not pay even that expense. The sufferers by this calamity, for such it really is, are thoroughly crestfallen; one who has cultivated for the last four years and lost money every year, declaring he will not make another attempt. At present it is not possible to give any very accurate idea of what the difference will be in the actual yield., but several have stated that it will not be more than one-half. A correspondent of the Pleasant Creek News, writing from the borders of the Mallee, confirms the rumor that three lives were lost during the raging of the bush fire last week :— " On Monday it raged fearfully, and must have been seen at Pleasant Creek. Mr Farris lost nearly all his run fences. Mr Hoy, and the next station to. him. lost frightfully. On Farris' run, three men engaged fencing in the Mallee are supposed to have been burnt to death, as both natives and Europeans have been engaged looking for them for the last week without success, and entertain no hope of finding them alive." A later communication to the Ballarat Star leads to confirm the fears that the fencers were caught in the fire and burnt. Their names are not known. The Melbourne correspondent of the Ballarat Post asserts that one bank had £117,000 depending upon the agreement of the two Houses in the Amending Land Bill which is now passed into law, and when the interests of one institution were bq largely involved, it is not difficult to understand that there were very many supernumerary " whips" assisting Messrs Burtt and Whiteman in dividing the majorities that carried the measure through on the basis of the Conference agreement. The operations of one bank may be very generally accepted as the index of many others, and it is just possible that passing the Land Act, 1869, may have saved the colony from much worse disasters. Free selectors, under the Land Act, 1865, have much cause to be satisfied with the latest phase of land legislation, which has accorded to them a very handsome and acceptable New Tear's gift, which, we hope, may afford them all a sufficient start on the road to fortune-makiug. This morning (says the Herald of the 30th ult.) Mr Draper, formerly accountant at the Commercial Bank, was proceeded against at the City Court on the charge of having embezzled the sum of £987 18s lid. This sum was paid in, with a cheque for £42 10s 7d, to the credit of Messrs Darbyshire and Brunke, on Ist November, 1869. The charge alleged against Draper is that he paid £727 18s lid of this money to his own account, and £260 to Messrs Clarke and Co. The amount of £987 183 lid was eventually paid in to the credit of Messrs Darbyshire and Brunke on 27th November, on the ground that advices from London had been received crediting them to that amount. The prisoner was committed for trial, the bench considering that &prima facie case had been made out. Bail was allowed in two sureties of £5090 each. At 3 o'clock Mr Crisp, the solicitor for the prisoner, intimated to the magistrates that bail could not be obtained, and Draper was therefore committed to gaol. By the Police Gazette we perceive that Henry Power, the bushranger, is identical with Henry Johnson, ticket-of-leave holder illegally at large, and is also identical with Henry Jones, who about the year 1856 was tried for the murder of a boatman named Owens. The Town Hall, commenced during the civic reign of Mr Butters, continued during the year that Mr Moubray was mayor, when royalty condescended to place a corinthian capital, may be said to have been completed, as far as the exterior is concerned, at an early part of the Amessian dynasty. Just as we (Herald of the 29th ult.) were going to press to-day, the last stone of the tower was placed in position by the Mayor, assisted by variouscivic !

dignitaries and other well-known and influential gentlemen. The usual complimentary speeches were delivered, and the company adjourned to celebrate the successful completion of the undertaking in champagne. The weather (says the Argus of the 4th ihst.) from being very sunny and hot in the morning yesterday, gradually became more oppressive as the day advanced, and heavy banks of clouds, highly charged with electricity, slowly overcast the sky, the gloom being relieved at rapidly recurring irregular periods by flashes of forked and sheet lightning, accompanied by thunder, which, from a low growling in the distance, grew into a loud cannonade-like sound, though there was no remarkable individual explosion. At about half-past 4 in the afternoon, a few heavy dropß of rain fell, and in about five minutes the rain was pouring down like a shower-bath, accompanied by gusts of wind from every quarter at once. Soon all the gutters in Melbourne were running over the pavements, and the lower end of Elizabeth-street, from Collins-street to the M. and H. B. Kailway, became a sheet of raging water, covering all the footbridges, and rapidly converting the intersection of Elizabeth and Flinders streets into a turgid lake. The stream swelled and gained in extent until Flinders-street, from Degraves's warehouses to the Falls-bridge and some way beyond, was a perfect river, varying in depth from a foot in the middle to four feet in the side channels. The passengers arrivingin town by the various suburban trains gathered in the verandah of the railway station at Flinders-street, and passed some time in watching the progress of the flood. Several persons, anxious to cross from the town side to the railway, doffed boots, and rolling up their trousers boldly waded across. One of these adventurers narrowly escaped being washed away by the flood, as he got into the channel and found himself carried off bis legs, so that he had to strike out and swim, but he got safe off with a complete soaking. The cabmen also did a good deal of business in conveying people across the streets, though the water was in some cases up to the bellies of the horses. Messrs D. Masterton and Co., of Melbourne, have addressed the following letter to the Argus : — " Eeferring to a paragraph in your issue of to day, mentioning that several parties had suffered — although, fortunately, none seriously — through using the Victorian Sugar Company's sugar, we beg to point out that, although the sugar may have been as stated bought from us, yet being shipped under bond, and sent direct from the company's works, we cannot be held in any way responsible for it. Immediately on receipt of advices from our friends, we communicated with the Sugar Company here, who are now investigating the matter. Meanwhile, we are assured that no arsenic is used in refining the sugar."

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ST18700111.2.16.1

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Southland Times, Issue 1194, 11 January 1870, Page 3

Word count
Tapeke kupu
2,518

VICTORIA. Southland Times, Issue 1194, 11 January 1870, Page 3

VICTORIA. Southland Times, Issue 1194, 11 January 1870, Page 3

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