AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 299, 23 October 1873, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

A SANDHURST HORROR. The various phases of life in. a rich goldfields, community affords matter of strange and start* ling contemplation. Here the ceaseless roar of the Golden Fleece batteries proclaims the auriferous -wealth -of the district, and within a stone's throw of the wretched but of vice, with its squalid, obscene, and- youthful inmates gives evidence at the same time of the misery, the depravity, the baseness, and degradation of human nature. Her,e, the Golden Fleece mine, with its untold wealth, and there, umler the very shadow of its chimney stack, the hovel of Margaret Hickey, with her starved young children and her daughter living in her house in open and disgusting prostitution. Let the story be told as it was told before the Bench at the City Police Court on Thuraday. Sergeant Drought put forward Margaret Hickey, mother of a family, carrying a child in her arms ; Margaret Hickey, her daughter, aged sixteen years; and Alice Eaves, aged fifteen years, all on charges of vagrancy and of having no lawful or visible means of Rupport. Thomas Mann, underground manager of. the Golden Fleece Company, proved that the persons lived in a shanty close to his house. They were a nuisance to all the residents. They never did a,ny work, but boys from twelve years of age and upwards, and '"men" of forty years, were constant visitors at the shanty. — Mis Mann stated that disturbances took place at the shanty «p to very late, or even early houis in the morning. Some time since the death of the youngest child of the woman Margaret Hickey took place, as the witness believed, from neglect. She (witness) had seen it repeatedly running about without any clothes on, and in a neglected state. The verdict of the jury was that the child died of gross neglect. Dr O'Donncll, also at the inquest, deposed that the child (aged six years) had been violated. Dr Cruikshank, health officer of the city, sworn, deposed that he had examined the two young girls, Hickey and Eaves. They were suffering from loathsome disease, and covered with vermin, when brought to the lock-up. The police magistrate apparently found it difficult to preserve his composure during the eluci dation of these faots. He severely reprimanded the male parents of the giils, who were in Comt, but was powerless to send them where they ought to be sent, for a term of extended duration. The "vagrant" culprits, however, he would deal with, and did, as follows :— Margaret Hickey, mother of the child deceased, and of the one present in arms, and also of Margaret Hickey, aged sixteen years, he sent to gaol for twelve months, the last six months with hard labor. Margaret Hickey, daughter, and Alice Eaves (her companion in vice), he sentenced to be imprisoned for nine months with hard labor. — Abridged from Bendigo Ad' vertiser. * ■ SINGULAR FBEAK OF NATURE. A monstrosity was recently given birth to by the wife of a resident at Albury. The-children had arrived at full maturity, and were well formed ; but there was this strange freak of nature, that while there were two distinct bodies to below the armpits, and from the hipjoints to the feet, there was only one stomach and one abdomen. There was nothing repulsive in appearance, but both ' heads and features were rather finely shaped* The shoulders, arms, legs, and feet in both were likewise wtll formed. There (fas only one trunk, without any seam or other- mark. They were of the female sex, and neither lived after birth. / ' ' POLITE VAGABONDS. . A prison is not the kind of place from which the public would be most prepared to hear amusing anectlotes, and yet the Melbourne Gaol has produced some of these within a recent period. Not very long since an enterprising and well-mannered young man called there and explained to the governor that he was a literary man on his travel*, with an engagement to communicate whatever of public interest he observed by the way to a leading London daily and monthly, which he named, and with an incidental engagement to write for a daily and a weekly Australian paper, which need not be particularised here. This youth was courteously shown over the Melbourne Gaol, and he explained during the process that it was an important part of his journalistic mission to inquire into the state of prison discipline in all parts of -the world— a subject which he had lmusual means of investigating. So fap-s*ibfcequent circumstances proved him to ' be 'qijjte 'twhfaVfl* Within, a, d&v dr tyo htt

returned to the Melbourne Gaol under sentence for issuing yajuoless cheques, and with evidence recorded aigainat him that he had previously suffered in the same way. This gentleman is now extending his inquiries in regard to the prison system m Victoria concurrently with his efforts, extending over so many hours per diem, to reduce worn-out tarred rope into a commercial commodity known by the name r of "oakum." A still more piquante case happened within the past few days/ A" courteous and rather important looking person called *t • the Melbourne gaol with a letter addressed to the governor. It set forth that he had applied on the previous day at the penal department', where he had been informed that if he called at the gaol he would be shown over it ; and further, that he had been for many years a magistrate in India, and took an interest in visiting prisons. Furth r, the letter stated the writer was a nephew of a distinguished judicial functionary in Great Britain, whom it is better not to name. The note, we may observe, was written on note paper bearing the embossed stamp of the Legislative Assembly. Impressed by the imposing character of the visitor's note, Mr Oastieau's second in command — the governor himself being on tUvty at the Criminal Covir* at the time of the visit— showed him over the premises, and gave due heed to the many criticisms upon the state of the gaol which it pleased him to throw out. In leaving, he left a courteous message for the governor, of w hich the chiftf point was that ha (the visitor) would be happy to see the governor at Menzies's Hotel. Next day, before Mr Castieau had decided whether he was not bound in courtesy to return the call, the gentleman, whose name is Paul, ww introduced within the gaol walls once more, but in quite a new capacity, having been sentenced to two months' imprisonment for stealing spoons from Garton's Hotel It may be worth while to inquire how the gentleman obtained access to the Parliamentary Library, and the free use of the Parliamentiiry stationery. — Argus.