AUSTRALIAN CABLE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1707, 6 March 1888, Page 1

AUSTRALIAN CABLE.

Melbourne, March 2. Messrs Chaffey Bros, have decided to float a Company to work their Mildura Irrigation Company. The capital is to be £350,000. Three men have been arrested on a charge of levying blackmail from the manager of one of the city banks, by threatening to expose him on a charge of indecency. When the accused were brought before the magistrate the truth was ascertained by the confession of one of the trio, who admitted that it was a case of'blackmail, and all three were committed for trial for assault and conspiracy. March 3. A collision occurred at the Box-hill line, A number of trucks which were being shunted ran into a passenger train, and were smashed up. Ihe passengers were slightly shaken, but no serious casualties are reported, Sydney, March 2. Serial, an escapee suspected of the Auckland burglaries, recently served a sentence of seven years’ penal servitude for a series of burglaries in this colony. Adelaide, March 2.

A dividend of £l6 per share has been made payable to-day to the shareholders in the Broken Hill mine, from the amount realised by the Company by the sale of certain blocks to English capitalists. Information received from the Moorna Mines, situated near the western boundary of New South Wales, slates that 800 miners have gone out on strike because the Company owning the mines have decided to retain one-quarter of the payments due for contracts until such time as the contracts have been completed and a certificate granted by the engineer in charge of the works, Brisbane, March 2.

A quarrel arose last night between the officers and men of the barque Banffshire, lying at the Eagle street wharves. Some of the men attacked the second mate of the vessel. The latter, with the assistance of an apprentice, kept them off with revolvers, which both discharged at their assailants. Three men were wounded, two seriously. The officer and apprentice have since been arrested. March 3. At the Trade Congress Mr Seymour, representing New Zealand, moved the inclusion of seamen in employ in the Employers’ Liability Act, which was carried unanimously, A resolution was also passed emphatically protesting against the Chinese entering the Northern Territory and insisting on their total exclusion from Australia. Rockhampton, March 1. Further wreckage from the ship fiaslrainster is being washed up on the beach in the neighborhood of Keppel Bay, which leaves but little doubt that the ship has been lest with all hands. It has been ascertained that during the recent severe storms rockets were seen and the discharge of guns was heard, as if a vessel was in distress, but strange to say the residents took no notice of the signals.