INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

Southland Times, Issue 1220, 8 March 1870, Page 3

INTERCOLONIAL NEWS.

VICTORIA. Mr &. P. Smith, ex Attorney-General, baa apologised to the Legislative Assembly for his conduct in striking Dr Macartney, the member for South Gipps' Land, within the precints of Parliament, • and the matter has been allowed to drop. The thirteenth intercolonial cricket match between New South "Wales and Victoria was not concluded on the 28th , nit. The latter team had made a total I score in two innings of 518, and the former, who were playing their second innings, had scored 224, with seven wickets to falL The M. A. Mail reports that there is much sickness in the neighborhood of Castlemaine. Cases of diptheria are being hourly taken to the hospital, and the disease does not appear to be abating in any part of the district. The disease is now exhibiting itself in a new form, namely, taking its seat below the tongue, on the franum, near the point of it. Some amusement was created at Scott's Hotel, Melbourne, on the 18th ult., by Commodore Nutt challenging and playing a.gaoae of billiards with a well-known squatter and grazier of the Mornington district. The game, went against the officer.'* who, throughout, played in a good old-fashioned safe style. A marker^ armed with a cue and stool, was told off entirely to attend him. The Hon. J* M'Crae died on the 19feh inßt. at his station on the Murrumbidgee. Mr M'Crae was for a short time Minister of Public Works in the late M'CuUoeh Administration. .

The trial of the late accountant of the Commercial Bauk, Thomas Webb Draper, which took place on the 23rd February at the Melbourne Criminal Sessions, has resulted in the conviction of the prisoner upon one of the charges of embezzlement brought against him. In this instance Draper was charged with converting to his own use a cheque for £987 18s lid. The cheque formed part of a sura of £1,030 9s. 6d., with which Messrs G. C. Darbyshire and Ernest Brunke proposed to open an account at the Commercial Bank. The money and the pay-slip, representing the amount were given to Draper, who instead of opening the account as directed, paid the £997 18s. lid. cheque into the bank separately, appropriating by one pay slip £727 18s. lid. to his own account, which was then largely overdrawn, and £260 to the account of Clarke and Co., to whom he was indebeted to the extent of about £300. He at the same time directed the ledger-keeper to honor all cheques presented by Darbyshire and Brunke, as they were about to open an account. Subsequently, Draper paid into Darbyshire and Brunke's account a cheque for £42 10s. 7d., and also a sum of £987 18s. lid., represented as having been paid to their account in London, which made up the amount of £1,030 9s. 6d. The defence set. up by the prisoner's counsel was ingenious— namely, that the bank had never been deprived of the money represented by Darbyshire's cheque for £987 ; the bank had received the proceeds of it, and although those proceeds were diverted from the account to which it should have been placed, the bank had not lost the money. This question was reserved as one of law for the full Court, and the case went to the jury, who declined ts accept this view, and found the prisoner "Guilty." Justice Williams sentenced the prisoner to only 12 months' imprisonment, and the leniency of the punishment has excited highly unfavorable comment, especially as the learned judge the other day passed a precisely similar sentence upon a cabman charged with feloniously receiving a Crimean shirt worth 12s. The bank, whose losses by these defalcations amount to over £16 3 000, have three other cases to bring against the prisoner. The Melbourne correspondent of the Geelong Advertiser, writing on the 21st nit., says : — Notwithstanding the unpleasant fact that the thermometer indicated something like 100 degrees in the shade at two o'clock this afternoon, the first publicappearance of General Tom Thumb and his diminutive party at,the Polytechnic | Hall was attended by a crowded audience, and the performances of the little people were highly successful. The General, whose age is now just 32 years, personated Napoleon the Great perhaps j better than he did when I saw him go through the same attitudes some five and tweuty years ago iv London, and the singing of Mrs T. T., and Miss Minnie "Warren was pretty and amusing. The life and soul of the party, however, is " Commodore Nutt," who sang a number of comic songs in character with irresistible effect. His "Dandy Pat" was a bit of genuine rollicking Irish humor that set the house in a roar, and was followed by an encore that would take no' denial, while his " Perfect Cure," his " Jim Crow," and his " Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines," were each equally good in their way. The same talented little man, in the character of a British drummer, beat a sort of devil's tattoo upon the sheepskin that was excruciatingly clever, although rather trying to the auditory nerves of his hearers. The dresses of the two lady members of the party — which I may state for the information of your fair readers, were of moire antique, the one brown and the other blue, and made with trains — were exceedingly handsome and becoming, and were worn with all the grace of a couple of duchesses. On his way to and from the hall the General rode in his open carriage, the Commodore's brother acting as coachman, and occasionally using his whip with good effect upon the crowd of dirty little boys that sometimes threatened to run over the whole equipage. The Polytechnic Hall has been hand somely fitted up for the occasion. The building is large and well ventilated, and thoroughly adapted to an exhibition of the kind for which it is now engaged. A case of supposed murder waa discovered on the 26th ult., at about halfpast 2 o'clock, when the body of a woman, aged apparently about 24, was found in the Tarra amongst some rushes, near Brander's Ferry. The body was removed to the morgue, where it was identified as that of a young woman named Susan Egan, otherwise Louey Brown, who recently lived in Flinders-lane east, but had lately come from Adelaide, where her parents are said to reside. There was a wound on the mouth, as if a blow had been struck with the fist, and the upper portion of the left ear was gone, having apparently been struck or wrenched off. A young man of 23, named Henry James Edwards, a butcher, was arrested on a charge of murdering the woman, and will be brought before the City Bench to-day. It is said that there had been a courtship between the woman and Edwards, and that marriage was talked of. There was the mark of a boot on the forehead of the body, and the boot worn by the prisoner, it is said, corresponded with the mark. The woman was seen alive last at about half-past 11 the previous nighfc Thelate manager of the Taradale branch of the National Bank (Henry G. Downman), who was committed for trial last month on. a charge of embezzling the funds of the bank, has been tried at the Melbourne Criminal Sessions and acquitted. Downman (who received a salary equal to over £320 a year> and a free house) had, in August, 1869, overdrawn his account to the extent of £84. On this being reported to the head office, he waa told that it was an irregularity, and he was subsequently requested to make arrangements to reduce the debt* Instead of doing bo, he increased the overdraft to £230, which led to his dis- '

missal, insolvency, and subsequent prosecution for embezzlement. The defencs was that the liability was only a civil one, and that the bank had always so regarded it until the prisoner became insolvent, having entered into negotiations with Downman with the view of extinguishing the debt. The jury adopted the view that the prisoner was not guilty of any criminal offence, and brought in a verdict of " Not Guilty." The Talbot Leader of the 25th ult. gives the following particulars of the murder of a wife by her husband at Mount Glasgow, in a fit of jealousy. Shortly after noon on Wednesday last, a farmer named Thomas Studman, residing at the foot oi Mount Glasgow, shot his wife through the heart with a revolver. The man it seems suspected his wife's fidelity, aid to ascertain, the truth of his suspicions took a farm laborer named Edward Williams, whom he believed guilty of this improper intimacy, borne to confront him with his (Studman's) wife. When they got there Studman told his wife to get Williams some breakfast, and the two men were on jocular terms. Shortly after Studman locked and bolted all the doors in the room, and producing a loaded six-barrelled revolver, told Williams to pray, as he had only five minutes to live. Williams saw that matters had now gone beyond a joke, and a struggle followed. During the scuffle the pistol went off, and the bullet intended for Williams went through Mrs Stud man's heart, killing her of course instantly. Williams then left the house without any attempt on the part of Studman to prevent him going, although after he had gone Studman expressed wonder that he had let him go without lodging a bullet in him. The police 1 were at once informed of the matter, and on proceeding to the scene of the murder arrested Studman, who offered no resistance. The man has been a resident /in the district for many years, and has borne a good character for steadiness and in^ dustry. He is the owner of a threshing machine, with which he travels about the district at harvest time. Williams had some time since been in Studman's employ as a laborer, and was in the habit of going J to Studman's house, The revolver was bought by Studman from a compositor,, employed in our office, the purchaser, stating when he bought it that he was going down to his threshing machine at Bullarook, and needed it for his own protection, as he often carried money about with him, and there were rough characters there. After buying the pistol, and getting caps and ammunition from an ironmonger in the town, he went back to Mr. Maudsley, from whom the revolver was bought, and borrowed a second pistol. There can be no doubt, therefore, that he intended to commit murder, although from the affectionate terms upon which he lived with his wife, and the regret he expressed when the shot had taken effect on her, there is every reason to believe that it was not his wife's life he intended to take but Williams's. At the inquest, Dr Alexander's evidence showed that death resulted from a small gun-shot wound in the heart. Edward Williams deposed that Studmau asked him to go to his house on Wednesday morning last, gave him a breakfast, then suddenly fetched a revolver from the kitchen, charged him with adultery with his wife, and told him to say his prayers, as he had not long to live. Studmm then fastened all the doors of the room, and fired once at Williams' head, but either the chamber had not a shot in it or the aim was bad, and so it did not take effect. A struggle followed, and the pistol went off, killing Mrs Studm n. The jury considered the pistol held by Studmau went off accidentally, and that he had no inten-' tionof killiutr his wife, and they brought in a verdict of" accidental death." The police authorities are not satisfied with thi3 verdict, and they will arrest Studman on the charge of wilful murder. Thomas Webb Draper is not to be allowed to expiate his multifarious swindles by eight months' imprisonment only. The authorities of the Commercial Bank have resolved upon instituting another prosecution. A few days ago it was discovered by Mr Coutts, a farmer at Mount Greenock, that a snake had taken up his abode in a hole under the chimuey of Mr Coutts' s house. To get rid of the reptile Mr Coutts mixed strychnine with some oatmeal and milk, and placed it before the snake's hole. Next morning the bait was all swallowed, aud about eight inches of the defunct snake lay outside the hole, greatly swelled. It measured about sft long. On examining the retreat, the Talbot Leader says, it was found that about 100 mice had been killed by the poison also. ' Nuggets continue to turn up at Berlin. On the 10th ult., reports the Advertiser, a fine piece of gold, weighing over 760z., was sold to the Bank of New South Wales by a party of three Chinamen. The man Dyer, who confessed to the murder of his" mate Wilson, at the MiaMia, Newstead, in 1858, was, reporLs the Mail, for a time storeman for Mr E. B. Sinclair, of Pennyweight, Guildford, and while in Mr Sinclair's employ, he had the great placard offering £100 reward for the murderer staring him in the face daily, as it was posted on the store door.