AUSTRALIAN NEWS,

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 228, 13 June 1872, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN NEWS,

There appear to be some good claims at the Lyell. A twelve-days' crushing from one yielded the owners LSO a man. A oneeighth share in this claim recently changed hands for LIOOO, and a parcel of thirty scrip found a purchaser at Nelson for LISOO. The Government statistician says that the proposed grant to the Australian Trans-Con-tinental Railway is equal to a road 156 miles wide right across the continent. Trustworthy information has been received that English, capitalists are prepared to support the trans-continental railway scheme. A special meeting of the Carpenters' Society was held lately in the Trades' Hall, Melbourne, to consider a circular received from Mr Newberry. secretary of the Industrial and Technological Museum, '-intimating the intention of the directors to establish classes in mechanics, mathematics, and practical geometry, in addition to the classes already formed. After some discussion, the following resolution was carried :—": — " That this, society give all the assistance it can to the Technological Commiwionere uj further.

ance of their very laudable object, and that the secretary t>e instructed to forward a copy of the suggestions and this resolution to Mr J. Cosmo Newberry." Private telegrams received at Adelaide speak cheeringly of the overland telegraph, The work is in full swing, an! the horse ex- , press was expected to commence by the end ' of July. The Press urges that some com' munication with Port Darwin be opened up immediately. A Sydney telegram, dated the 21st May, states that " the trial of Nicholls and Lester tor the Paramatta River murders was finished at half-past seven o'clock to-night. The jury retired for a short time, and returned into court with a verdict of guilty. The judge asked the prisoners what they had to say before sentence was passed upon them. Nicholls commenced to speak, but immediately fainted. Leter then fainted also. Nicholls had to be held up by the ■ police while sentence of death was passed upon him. Lester cried bitterly, and handed in a written statement denying killing either of them ; that Nicholls kill* d them both ; that he fired at Bridges, and then hammered him on the head with a pistol." The South Australian Government appears . to be a model of elasticity. A correspondent writes to a Melbourne paper s— The - Ministerial measures have been criticised with severity, and amended without stint, but both criticisms and amendments have been taken in good part by the Treasurer, who has learned well the apostolic lessnn to be all tilings to all men. With him and his colleagues harmony 1b to be the path to fame. When they are reviled they.revSe not again ; when their motives are impugned, they mildly prove their deluded accuser in the wrong ; when their proposals are rejected in favor of something that commends itself to their judgment as a more excellent way, they magnanimously thank the House for correcting them, and fellow its leadership. 1 hey have made up their minds, in fact, to rule by affection, rather than by brute force. Where there are differences of opinion they are prompt in suggesting the happy, mean, and have already earned the title of the Ministry of Mediums. .There is, however, no servility in the efforts to please the House, and therefore members have not in any way ceased to respect them.