NEW SOUTH WALES.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 166, 24 May 1859, Page 4

NEW SOUTH WALES.

We extract the following items from the Sydney Herald of the ] 3th instant :— The new appointments in the Customs' department have at length been duly gazetted. Mr. W. A. Duncan, from Moreton Bay, and some years since editor of the Sydney Chronicle, succeeds Colonel Gibbs as Collector, as he is himself succeeded as sub-collector at Brisbane by Mr. William Thornton, hitherto landing-waiter at that port. Mr. W. C. Still succeeds to the office of landing-waiter, vice Garling, who retires. These are some other and minor appointments consequent upon these changes. Mr. Ledger has been formally gazetted as " Superintendent of Alpacas." In that capacity, he will have charge of the flock imported by himself; .the transfer of which by purchase, to the Government, has been duly chronicled in our columns. But the station for this flock has not been yet mined; nor will be, we believe, until Mr. Ledger shall have made a tour of inspecH tion through the country. . A commencement was made, yesterday; upon the railway extension works, contracted for by Sir Moreton Peto arid Co.', arid for which the necessary funds. were voted last session.; Our Southern neighbors will again have a chance of " a good crow"—a thing they are rather fond of—for a Melbourne man has most decidedly beaten a Sydney man in a sculling match. The competitors were White and Punch, and the contest came off on Monday. The former won easily, coming in a boat's length before the other. y A man of seventy-five, named Samuel Shearston, hanged himself on Tuesday evening. He had been addicted to liquor, but he was cursed with a wife and daughter who were still greater drunkards, and who seem to have led him a fearful life. He had suffered great depression of mind owing to the loss of some money a few months ago, and once before attempted self destruction. But it seemed to be the drunkenness and violence of his wife and daughter which harrassed him most. The verdict of the jury was that he had killed himself in a fit of temporary insanity brought on by the conduct of his wife anddaughter. One William Wall, coachman to Archbishop Polding, was killed some days ago by a blow on the head from the shaft of a grocer's cart, but no blame.seems to have been attributed to the driver. A movement has begun in connection with the Church of England, for supplying by public subscriptions the deficiency created by the refusal of the Assembly to vote a supplement to the schedule for public worship. ' ~ Designs have been invited for the proposed new Houses of Parliament, and in order that professional men in other countries may compete fairly with those of New South Wales in the production of the designs, photographic views of the site are being taken by Messrs. Freeman Brothers, and copies of these views will be sent to all parts of the world. As few sites could be more commanding, a splendid scope will be thus afforded for the exercise of professional judgment and talent in the adaption of these designs to position and to climate. The latter, we hope, will be borne in mind. It is a common error not only to design but tp erect both public buildings and private dwellings which, although 'they might answer well enough in England, are wholly unsuited to the scorching summer..sun arid to the sharp southerly gales of Anstralia.