Intercolonial Brevities.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXI, Issue 3902, 25 May 1899, Page 4

Intercolonial Brevities.

The Wallaroo Smelting Company at Adelaide is spending £60,000 in providing lead smelting works for the production of sulphurio aoid to supply a superphosphate factory close to band. The Queensland Government has created a new office, that of Inspector of Totalisators. It. will be the officer’s duty to visit the various raoecourses in the oolony for the purposes of investigating the working of the totalisators and making sure that the Government sustains no loss. The Peakhill alluvial case was concluded at Perth on the 25th ultimo, after eleven days’ hearing. The jury were locked up for five and a half hours, but, failing to agree on any of the important issues, were discharged. This was the case in which all the available local geologists were summoned to give expert evidence. Long distanoe telephones are proving a success in Victoria from the point of view of profit to the department and convenience to the public. Geelong, Werribee, and Ballarat (74 miles) are now connected with Melbourne, and the lines are worked at a profit. Bendigo will probably be connected soon. The distance to there is 10U miles.

The development of Lord Beauchamp’s plans, says a Sydney exchange, has entirely altered the aspect of his appointment. When the nows first came, Australians pictured the novelty of a bachelor entourage at Government House, and evidently the eoho of their speculations reaohed Madusfield Court for the Himalaya brings out so many of the new Governor’s female relations that the record will rather be one of exoessive femininity than the other extreme.

The New South Wales Minister for Education, who has charge of the vote for the “ encouragement of art,” has approved of the terms under which the travelling scholarship offered by the Society of Artists will be awarded. He has agreed to place a sum on next estimates to ensure the granting of the award in twelve months’ time. The scholarship, which carries £l5O a year lor three years, is open to all students under the age of 30 years who have been resident in the colony and studied for two years prior to the award.

There is to be a reform in the matter of the quarantining of steamers arriving at Australian ports. When a boat of the German line was quarantined at Freemantle the other day for what turned out to be a case of chicken pox, the detention is said to have entailed a monetary loss of £2OOO on the oompany, apart from the inconvenience to all concerned. Now the Premiers of Victoria and New South Wales have agreed that it shall be ascertained which medical men at each port are experts in the matter of small pox and have treated it out of Australia, and where there is a doubt they shall be oalled in to decide. A six months-old boy was drowned under peculiar circumstances recently at Berrigan, in N S.W. The mother of the infant, while eDgaged with the household washing placed a kerosene tin full of water alongside the sofa where the child was asleep. Tbe latter rolled off head first into the tin, where it was discovered insensible. Efforts were made to resuscitate the child, but there was some delay in getting a doctor, who, on arrival, found it dead. Cuttings of the white mulberry are now being distributed free by the Victorian Silk Culture Association to residents in suburban and country districts. One of the chief objeots of the association is to enoourage the cultivation of this valuable tree throughout the oolony.

A peculiar celestial phenomenon was observed at MoloDg (N.S.W) about 6 o’olock on the evening of the 21th lilt. When the moon was some 15 degrees above the horizon two seini circular black bands appeared on the surface. The band on the northern side extended from the top to the bottom, and that on the south about two-thirds of the distanoe, giving the moon the appearance of being circled by a broken ring of light. The sky was cloudless. As the moon rose the black bands became more pronounced, until towards 8 o’clock when they commenced to disappear by gradually falling away at the ends.