AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2786, 18 January 1878, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

(FHOM AtrBTBAI.ABIAN, JANUABY 5.)

The gold exported from ConTftown for the past year amounts to 155,0000z5, showing a decrease of 14,0000 as on the previous year. The yield from the Gympie gold fields amounts to 45,0000z5, showing an increase on the previous year of 5,0000z3.

The famous Maribyrnong stud was disposed of at Mr C. B. Fisher's estate at Woodlands on Monday. A large proportion of the best animals were purchased by racing men and studowners in New Sonth Wales, Sonth Australia, and Queensland. Sixty-eight brood maTes arerasted £581 10s. The 100 lots of brood mares, yearlings, two-year-olds, three-year-olds, horses in training, and stallions, realised £51,235 ss.

The Ballarat Star, in a mining retroipect of the year 1877, states that the Tear just ended has been singularly barren of interest, in so far as new adven-" tures or discoveries are concerned. Mining is now a steady, plodding pursuit, only reliered now and then by a flash of luck beyond the ordinary brilliancy, and shadowed with the full average of disappointments and failures. The days of the rich, shallow alluvial arc no more, and the. (Jays of the rich leads are drawing near the sunset time — Creswjck and Haddon alone in this district now yielding anything of moment from that source of mining wealth. For though the City of Ballarat Company is alive, it is not now producing gold, and its fame is in the future, where we hope to. see it rise to great height and permanence. Reference to this company reminds us •gain of the steady, large, and costly nature of most of our mining adventures now-a-day. All the romance and dash and sudden change of the early days have gone, and mining has become a business of much calculation, capital, routine. For, great depths have to be explored, expensive machinery employed, and years expended in merely preliminary operations. At the Oddfellows' picnic which took place at Rarenswood- to-day (Jan. 1), a fatal accident occurred to a married woman named Mary Ann Gregory, the wife of a miner residing at dunes. Mrs Gregory was on a visit to her sister, a Mrs Ham, of Quarry-hill, Sandhurst, and it appears that at the picnic the deceased joined,in that popular game, "kiss in the ring." A rery large ring had been formed, and the deceased was running away from a young man, when she was struck on the ] breasfe by a short thick piece of wood on which two young men were swinging. It was a large swing, and wns in full motion at the time. The decased ran against it. She was slightly out of breath from running at the time, and the force of the blow on the chest suspended respiration and also gave her other internal injuries. On receiving the blow she staggered back, and in falling was caught by the young man who was pursuing her, but whose name I was unable to obtain. It was stated by some persons present that she said "I'm not hurt." Seniorconstable Gleeson and several ladies rendered every assistance in their power, but their efforts were unavailing, and the poor woman expired in half an hour. She was only about 20 years of age, and bad been married three years. Her-body was brought into Sandhurst by train, and an inquest will be held to-morrow.