KILLED IN A PRIZE FIGHT.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 370, 4 July 1874, Page 4

KILLED IN A PRIZE FIGHT.

No small amount of excitement was created in Ballarat on Monday, the lSth 4 June, when it became known that, on j^e previous day, a prize fight had come off near Madmans Flat, not far from the toll gate on the Buninyong road, and that one of the pugilists had died from the effects of it. Early on Monday morning (says the " Courier ") Sergeant Lamer was informed of the occurrence, and soon afterwards, in company with Inspector Ryall, he proceeded to the house of a Mrs. Blair, and found her son, Duncan, who had heen one of the combatants, lying dead in bed. Acting on information received, the officers named then proceeded to another house, and arrested a young fellow named Robert Fountain, Blair's antagonist, and Stephen Fountain; and thence to a mining claim, where they arrested Frank Sally, another young man who, it is reported, acted as Fountain's second on the occasion. They were all brought to the Eastern lock-up, and a charge entered against them of having caused the death of Duncan Blair. From what we have been able to learn of the sad affair, it would appear that on last Saturday week the two men who fought had a quarrel at the United St-ites Hotel, when some blows were struck. They were then turned out of the hotel, and proceeded up Clayton's Hill, where the fight was renewed, git is said that then Stephen Fountain kicked Blair over the liver when he was down. At all events Blair, after that occurrence, sought the advice of Dr. Bartleman, who was attending him for several days. Last Saturday night, Robert Fountain challenged Blair to fight, and it was arranged ! that on the following morning they would " have it out.'** Accordingly, accomi panied by about thirty others of their own class, they proceeded to the spot indicated. i a ring was formed, and amongst the spectators, it is said, was Mrs. Blair herself. It is stated that the fight lasted for nearly three quarters of an hour, and it wound up in the following manner .—. — Robert Fountain appeared at one time to be getting the worst of it, and his brother (Stephen) called out to him, " Hit him on the sore part " (alluding it is thought, to the part over the liver,) Fountain watched his opportunity and struck Blair over the liver, and the latter fell and could not rise again. He was carried home, and Dr. Bartleman was sent for later in the day ; but the ill-fated man lingered in great agony till four o'clock on Monday morning, when he expired.

"Recently, the " Scotsman " mentioned that a bible bound in calf, and bearing the name of " William Sim," a Dundee man, and the date 1830, had been discovered in the stomach of a codfish. This fact alone was remarkable enough, but still more extraordinary is another circumstance connected with the affair, also reported by the " Scotsman." On the very same day on which the strange discovery was* made known to the public through it 3 columns, the heirs of the deceased Mr. Sim succeeded in obtaining a warrant in the outer House of the Court of Session (from the Lord Ordinary Mure) to uplift several hundreds of pounds belonging to the said William Sim, who was described in the legal proceedings as a sailor, a native of Dundee, who had gone to sea about 1834, and had not since been heard of. There can be little doubt that the bible thus preserved in the codfish's stomach belonged to the lost William Sim, of Dundee.

"They say," writes Max Adeler, " that the chief astronomer at the Washington Observatory was dreadfully "sold " a short time ago. A wicked boy, whose Sunday-school experience seems to have only made him more depraved, caught a fire-fly and stuck it, with the aid of some mucilage, in the centre of the largest lens in the telescope. That night, Avhen the astronomer went to work, he perceived a blaze of light, apparently in the heavens, and what amazed him more was that it would give a couple of spurts, and then die out, only to burst forth again in a second or two. He examined it carefully for a few seconds, and then began to do sums to discover where in the heavens that extraordinary star was placed. He thought he had found the locality, and the next morning he telegraphed all over the universe that he had discovered anew and remarkable star of the third m agnitude in the Orion. In a day or two all the astronomers in Europe and America were studying Orion, and they gazed at it for hours until they were mad, and then began to telegraph to the man in Washington to know what he meant. The discoverer took another look, and found that the new star had moved about eighteen billions of miles in twenty-four hours, and upon examining it closely, he was alarmed to perceive that it had legs ! When he went on the dome the next morning to polish up the glass, he found the lightning bug. People down at Alexandria, seven miles distant, heard part of the swearing, and they say he went into it with whole-souled sincerity and vigorous energy. The bill for telegraph despatches amounted to 2,600 dollars, and now the astronomer wants to find that boy.

Origin op Apprenticeships. — Apprenticeship is supposed to hav3 had its origin in the twelfth century. In 1400, the practice of apprenticing boys to trades had become so common that complaints arose of a consequent want of agricultural laborers, and in the reign of Henry IV, it was therefore enacted that no person, who had not land or rent to the value of 20s-. a year, which was then a comparatively large sum, should be allowed to bind his son or daughter apprentice, and this law remained for some time in force. ! The sons of knights, esquires, and gentlemen were, at a far later date, noticed by an old writer as flocking to London in I order that they might be apprenticed. An Act passed in the 7th year of Queen Eliza1 beth established seven years as the period of apprenticeship. — " Furniture Gazette." An " Onlooker " writes in the " Melbourne Age as " follows : — " I find that most of the [ accidents, if they may be so called, that happen to the vessels coining here, happen while the 'vessels are in ve.y high latitudes, whereas those vessels that run down their easting in about 40 degrees, arrive here comparitiyely without any mishap what ever. If any doubt this, let oim read for himself, and he will find it as I have stated, be it losing men overboard or losing masts, and also at a time when it is winter in the Southern Ooean. I beleive, sir, that it is pretty well known that iron is much more brittle when it is cold than when it is warm, which may perhaps account for the manner in r whieh the four iron .tigged ships — Dallam Tower.Cainbridgeehire, Loch Ard, and and John Kerr — lost their mast 9, as it ' appears to that -they were all in frosty weather at the time of accident. At one time it was custumary to notify in the newspapers, prior to a ship satliug, that there was to 'no shaving crossing the Line.' . I think it will soot be necessary to advertise that the ship will not go the southward of 40 deg. during 1 the passage.