LATEST AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 496, 27 April 1869, Page 2

LATEST AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

The following items of Australian news have been received by the s.s. Tararua and Rangitoto : The Investigator s.s. has arrived with the cable for Bass's Straits. Dr L. L. Smith, while operating on a dog bitten by a snake, was bitten on the arm, and the day afterwards showed symptoms of snake-poisoning, but has now recovered. The Eev. Charles Clark, pastor of Albert-street Baptist Church, arrived per Great Britain. Jones, introduced by the Sergeant-at-Arms only, took his seat on Tuesday. Madame Anna Bishop left for Adelaide and proceeds to New York. The Grovernment propose to extinguish grant-in-aid to religion, by reducing the vote for ten thousand annually for five years. John Ferguson, clerk in the Curator's Office, was committed for trial for embezzlement. Bushranging exploits are reported, committed by Power at Beechworth. Several people stuck-up. Nicol Brown, found guilty of the Sandy Creek murder, in G-ipps Land, has been sentenced to death. John Brentall, employed at Spencerstreet Station, has been crushed to death between two carriages. "Walter Quick, a young lad, has been arrested for robbery of £BOO, from Messrs. Hemmonds and Co.

A valuable entire horse, of some celebrity in America, arrived in Yictoria by the barque Garibaldi from New York.

The rush to Spring Creek seems to have re-commenced. The coaches have been overloaded, and the other day some fifty were left behind at Sandhurst.

Hughes, the late town clerk of Adelaide, has been committed for trial on a charge of embezzlement. He protested his innocence on being removed from the dock. Defalcations have been discovered in the Post Office department, Brisbane. A clerk and a letter-sorter have been arrested on suspicion of being implicated. A new industry appears likely to spring up in Queensland, in the cultivation of the tea plant. A case, which appears to be one of small-pox in a mild form, has occurred at Torquay, in the north of Tasmania. The sufferer is a child. The subject has created some little anxiety in the island, vaccination having been very much neglected.

The information possessed by the Launceston journals as to the real character of the new goldfield at Eingarooma seems to be very scanty. One day the reports are extravagantly favorable, and on the next they are just the reverse. We now learn that the finds of gold in the alluvial have been but small, and that the metal appears to be confined to the neighkorhood of the reef which runs through the ground. Three experienced miners had arrived in Launceston from Victoria, for the purpose of giving the new field a thorough prospecting. They were to take with them provisions for three months.

A company is in course of formation for testing the mineral wealth of the country near the border of New South "Wales for silver, gold, and copper. From information, practical and scientific, they have strong hopes of success.