AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2121, 21 October 1875, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

In? the Australasian's Home Letter* of date September 25th, appears the following :—A remarkable event in the progress of quartz mining in this colony has taken place during the month, '.this is the striking of a golden reef in the shaft of the Magdaia Company, at Stawell, at the enormous depth of 1681 ft. The shaft of of the company has been seven years in sinking, and the patient perseverance with which the works have been carried on, in the face of delay and discouragement, has been most praiseworthy. The reef has not yet been sufficiently opened out to be thoroughly tested, Vut its discovery "has oaused the shares of the company to increase very much in value, and the proof "which it affords of the depth to which auriferous reefs extend has the effect of enormously increasing the area open to mining enterprise in this colony.

"Fbom our north-western country," writes the Brisbane correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald, " comes a story of death of a most remarkable and terrible description. The sheep at an out-station on Groongarry being found in a scattered state, search was made for the shepherd, and after some lapse of time the body; of the unfortunate fellow was found hanging by the leg in the fork of a sapling. It would appear that he had for some purclimbed the tree, but losing his hold, had fallen ■, with one knee catching in a forked branch. Near the tree lay his watch and clasp-knife, and he had evidently been endeavoring to cut away the branch in order to extricate himself from his terrible position. Failing in this, he had endeavoured to give support to the other leg by tying it to the sapling with his shirt. All his efforts, however, were useless, and he must have died a lingei'ing and dreadful death in his solitude. When found, his head was nearly touching the ground, and one hand, evidently in the death agony, had clutched a tuft of grass." , Says the Melbourne Argus:—After giving the matter a fair trial, Mrs Colclough has been driven by the logic of circumstances to admit that her attempt to establish a cheap lodging-house for women is an utter failure. With a candour which, is highly creditable to her, she admits, in a letter which we published on Thursday, that we knew more of the matter than she did, when we foretold that the institution she was desirous of establishing would be liable to great abuse, and that, in fact, such a home would probably become an asylum for loafers. We do not mention the matter in order to approve our prescience—indeed, we should have been very glad had our predictions been falsified by the facts. We are always sorry for the disappointment which must accompany the failure of generous efforts, and it is for this reason, in part, that we feel it our duty to prevent the waste of social power attending misdirected energy. ,