Australian News.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2884, 27 April 1888, Page 2

Australian News.

Sydney, April 25,

A large proportion of the ammunition imported from England for use in the heavy guns placed in the batteries at the heads has been condemned by the Military Board. Smith, the principal witness in the Mount Rennie outrage, while in Bathurst Gaol awaiting sentence on a charge of arson, for which he had been convicted, came face to face with Donellan, a youth concerned in the Rennie outrage, but whose sentence of death had been commuted, when the latter rushed Smith and attempted to strangle him, The gaol warders overpowered Donellan, and removed Smith to a' place of safety. Melbourne, April 25. A miner fossicking at Wedderburn, a mining town, situate at Korong Creek, 146 miles north-west of here, uuearthed a nugget weighing 54ozs. Adelaide, April 25. A severe drought is threatened in the northern and central portions of the colony, and disastrous results are expected. Young lambs are dying in great numbers.

The Rabbit Conference. Sydney, April 25. M. Loir lias supplied full particulars of M, Pasteur's Bclieme to tlio Rabbit Conference. It appears that during M. Pasteur's investigations with chicken cholera about two years ago, he accidentally discovered that rabbits were especially susceptible to the malady. M. Loir says it is impossible to give direct proof that human beings are not susceptible to the disease, but states that no case lias ever been reported. Even were the diseased poultry eaten as food, the microbes would die at a temperature of fiftyrone degrees centigrade, and the virulence of the disease would be much weakened by exposure to the air, There is no danger of the disease being conveyed to cows' milk, even if the animals were fed on poisoned food. M. Loir states further that no mammals, except rabbits, are affected by the disease. During the first few removes of the disease from rabbit to rabbit, the virulence of the disease increases, but it soon attains its maximum intensity, and then becomes stationary. Generally speaking, the disease becomes more virulent in rabbits than in fowls. The answers given by M. Loir to the questions asked with reference to the experiments conducted in France, seemed to indicate that the infectant was placed in only a small portion of the experiments', which wero generally carried out by direct poisoning. The representatives of New South "tyales, Victoria, and i\ T ew Zealand have been appointed a committee to conduct the experiments, and the Conference has adjourned, pending the report of the committee,