Australian News.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3014, 12 October 1878, Page 1

Australian News.

(QfMNBLAMD COBBBSPONDBJT O» THJ IbGUS.) ; • . .., Society in Xfcisbane is becoming afflicted ..lomewttfct •eriouily with,,th& l larrikin nuisances,, from which Victorian towns suffer so severely. Well dressed young fellows, and many of them the sons * of people in good circumstanoes. < are numerous in oiir thoroughfares, smoking,, blaspheming, talking obscenely and eager* for any mischief. They insult and'atthoj^ wherever they think the odd! are m their favor, but with the true currish dispotltira * characteristicof the colonialfttr&ejrijffiarip they never show fight except .whfett'thef are much the strongest party.' Last Saturday night—a bright moonlightttight, too, by the way—a gang of these ruffians" picked a .quarrel with, two, men walk-, ing<quietly through our ■ prineipaT street. Three or four, of them especially set,'on 1" the men and beat one of .them named Daniel Driscoll so badly-that he died" before he could be conVeyeH' to an; hot*' pital. Threeofthem, named respectivelyClarke, Cockcrill and Purchase, were arrested next morning, and/will probably be tried for manslaughter. They are; I am .sorry to nay, all young .Queensland natives. . I knew,the murdered man... He< was very, quiet and /inoffensive. .jThr postmortem, I am" told, goes to.jshoirY that he,suffered from heart/disease, anil ■

believe some people are disposed to regar'S that fact as a sort of extenuation of ' the brutality of those who beat him to death. ■ Curious reasoning, certainly. The news from the new rush at the Palmer is on the whole very good, and there h no doubt that much gold is being , got, but at present there are on the ground some 6,000 men, aay 5,000 Chinese and l; 000 Europeans, and it requires a large • jeturn ri<fi 'gold to keep so many even in "tucker." It is to say that ther^e is not, profitable employment there at present for even one man more, but frgrn various Sources I learn that, if watei* • was *■■ more plentiful, European diggers think the field might be greatly extended in area, and that it will yet prove ths liic'hest alluvial liiggings in Queensland. It :is t the first field • discovered by Chinamen ixi this colosy, and I believe the first in Australia, and it in a . remarkable ; coinoidence that itj should haVe'freein discovered immediately after .the passing of an Act excluding Chinamen # from new gold-fields*for three years, unless, the field .is the discovery,of,^Chinaman. Thus do the'bestlaid schemes _ of •nti-Chinese legislators " gang aglee." From New Guinea there vis ;as| jet no news 'encouraging to 1 gold-'se^ekers; but there is Dews of interest to the world at large. The; much dreaded natives seem, if-not abused, to be about the most peaceable, good'tiatured savages under the sun the country is rich in the grandest tropical . scenery, and there is not a doubt that with intelligent use of capital and labour it *would in a few years be made one of the most productive in the world; I think that the time canndt be'far distant when, entirely independent of its mineral wealth, this great island will be sipughtifor the wide scope it will give men who have the capital and enterprise to conquer fortune mother less'hazardous pursuits than goldjniniDg. One important point has yet to be decided, namely, will the natives work, or must labour be imported? And m New Guinea, as in Fiji, much will depend on the answer to that question.