AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2553, 13 March 1877, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

(FBOk THK A^IfEALASIAN, MAHCH 3,)

Bbisbajto, Monday.

Advices by the Somerset report the loss by fire of the ship Harvey Mills, at Port Royal with 7000 bales of cotton. : * "r The Isabel, ship, from, Melbourne,.has been lost at sea 4 off Rangoon. The captain, his wife and family, and 12 of the crew, were drowned. / , *} The Park, steamer, has been lost between Saigon and - Hong. Song. .The", master, crew, and 80 Chinese .passengers were drowned. •. '": , ■> - The Douglas, schooner, which arrived at Cairns on Thursday, reports the massacre of three of the crew, named Patrick „: Troy, Humphrey Coughlan, and -Alexander M'lntosh, by blacks engaged from Dank Island to assist to load the Vessel with guano. They, also wounded the captain and four others, leaving only ■ two men and a boy unhurt,. who'Tworked the Vessel back to port. A further account says:.. The steamer Blackbird tirrived at Cooktown on Saturday, and landed three - wounded men from the, schooner Douglas. The story of the crew and their encounter with the blacks is a most extraordinary, one. The Douglas left Cairns last month for Guano Island. On the way, she. called at an island ofi Cardwell and procured three aboriginals., On her arrival at Guano Island, two' of the crew and two blacks went ashore, when the latter killed/jthe former ;.f then ;swara -to. the Vessel, ~aud killed the mate with all axe. Two other sailors and the,,captain came up-on deck, when "they were .attacked, wounded,'and forced to retire, into-the ■ cabin. The cookiook refuge in the galley/ ;aad ,the ? three .seamen in the...rigging. Next day the cook shot one of the blacks. The crew then armed^.themselves, and shot another black in 'the rigging, and afterwards the third, who had jumped overboard. ' ' "" -a The Register, in summarising thecirtulars received from farmers, estimatesttfat 950,000 acres have been reaped for wheat, averaging about six bushels per acre.' The total yield is 5,730,973. bushels, and deducting enough for seed and food, leayes « surplus of 3,020,070 bushels, or 80^8 tons, of wheat available for export.v *r

-Nine acres, o£ g Tower-hill potato land realised £70 "per lacre^at ia^ctibn'toiwfr; other lands were withdrawn from, sale, the highest offer, viz., £125 per acre, not being up to the. vendor's expectations.

. Singvlar Shooting Case. —. Some* thing of a sensation was created at the Werribee on Monday by a -report which was circulated to the effect that a man had been shot on the Werribee-park estate by one of the proprietors; but inquiry divested the affair of the i high colouring which it at first received. It appears that on Sunday afternoon Patrick Flaherty a small farmer at the went down to the Chirnsidjß estat«3irith; his wife and family for a driye. near a large mulberry ;tree on the bank of the river, not far from Mr Chirnside's stables, and gathered some fruit from the tree. Mr Andrew Chirnside shortly before had seen some -boys coming down from the tree, and as he wished to stop" the depredations on the part of the boys, he went in for a gun, with., the object of firing a shot or two over the tree to frighten them. He fired the shots at a distance of about t l7s fpaees, and immediately afterwards he became awara of the presence of faome other persons on the other side of the tree.' He ran down, and found;that two of the shots-had struck Patrick Flaherty in the mouth, from which the blood..was, flowing. Mr Chirnside took him up to his house, had two horses saddled, and-despatched.* man with Flaherty to Willjamstown, where Mr Goldie attended to/his injuries. Two' of Flaherty's teeth had been knocked out, and his tQpgtte : cut,. but he sustained no further injury. Flaherty did not see Mr" Chirnside tijl after, the. .injuries had been . inflicted, and the latter states that he was totally:ignorant of any,one being behind ' the tree when he fired the shotsV "