AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 911, 9 January 1872, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

The " Age" expects lawyers soon to become as plentiful in Victoria as are colouels and captains in the United States. . '

The Melbourne University Council have refused to allow ladies who have passed the matriculation examination to attend the lectures.

The falling off in the wool clip of Tasmania last year was nearly a million and a half pounds weight, owing chiefly to the enormous increase of rabbits.

The shareholders of the Warrnambool Meat Preserving Company have resolved to wind up the concern. At Geelong a Mrs Williams, who was staying at an hotel there, fell through the floor of one of the rooms into a jeA'eller's shop below. Things in Tasmania are in such a depressed state that the very thieves are reported to be leaving the colony. Several more deaths, both of men and - animals, by lightning have occurred in Victotia.

The Sunday train question is now agitating the minds of the Victorian public.

The Victorian Government are going to import from home a supply of rifles and ammunition of the latest approved pattern for the use of the volunteers. The Bendigo "Water Works are about to pass into the hands of the City Council of Sandhurst.

At the last licensing meeting at Groelong not a single grocer applied for the renewal of his bottle license.

A Geelong solicitor, named Maley, having been convicted of forgery, has been struck off the rolls.

A mining company at Abergeldy washed up the other day, the grand result being 3oz 4dwt of gold. Victoria boasts of one teetotal publican. He keeps a public-house near the County Court, Melbourne. Fruit is very cheap in Victoria this season, and vegetables are being sold for " next to nothiug." A Sydney paper urges that China is a more promising market for preserved meat than England. A sheep, 18 months old, shorn at Moorak, S.A., yielded a "beautifully silky" fleece, weighing 231bs. It was not shorn as a lamb.

Small insolvencies have been very numerous iu Sydney of late. A number of vessels, employing between 200 and 300 men, are engaged iu pearl fishing in Torres Straits. One had on board £7OOO worth of beehe de mer alone.

During the 14 years that responsible Government has existed in South Australia, the average aunual cost to the colony for elections ha 3 been £1517.

Thistles are so plentiful in Victoria just now that the roads are everywhere nearly blocked up by them. The thermometer registered 116 degrees in the shade the other day at Grenfell, N.S.W.

A co-operative company for the manufacture and export of butter, is being formed at Kyneton. The capital is £IOOO, in £1 shares.

Caterpillars are ravaging some districts of Tasmania.

A policeman was taken ill the other day in the Sydney Police Court, and died the same evening. The weather in South Australia is warm and favourable for the harvest operations.

The German Turn Vereiu in Mel bourne have erected a fine neiV hall built of bluestoue.

_ Canon Stephen, of Sydney, has retired from his clerical duties, owing to ill-health.

The new lunatic asylum at Kew, Melbourne, is now out of the builder's hands. Its total cost will be about £150,000. A wild man is reported to have been seen in the Jingers Ranges, N.S.W. A hare, half devoured, has been found in a hawk's nest, near Batesford, Victoria. A mild form of foot and mouth dieease has appeared among some cattle recently landed at Sydney from England.

At Albury, N.S.W., a man was fined .£5, with the alternative of two months' imprisonment in default, for "using disgracefully insulting language about her Majesty the Queen." Large numbers of pilchards have made their appearance in Hobson's Bay.

A little girl has been burned to death at Hotspur, Victoria, by the explosion of a kerosene tin. Her sister caused the explosion by putting a light to the spigot to find out how far the tin was from being full. A concert in aid of the funds of the Orphan Asylum was given in the Melbourne Town Hall on the 11th inst. by nearly 1,000 children from various public schools in the city and suburbs, and proved a success. At Pleasant Creek a miner put his lighted pipe into one of his pocketß,! which was full of gun-cotton. An explosion ensued, by which he was seriously injured. £450 has boeu subscribed in Sydney towards the Bishop Patteson memorial fuud.