LATEST AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 934, 2 March 1872, Page 2

LATEST AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Hokitika, Feb. 27. The Raugitoto, which sailed from Melbourne on the 21st instant, arrived this morning. Passenger List.—Mr and Mrs Howard, Mr and Mrs Almas, Miss Quinlan, Mrs Roberts and infant, Rev B. Matthews, Messrs Chapman, George Cotterill, Biddulph, Slopps, Magill, and thirty in the steerage for aP- ports. Melb( tr.iNE, Pjb. 21 Yesterday was ordered by the Government to be observed as a thanksgiviDg day, in recognition of the recovery of the Prince of Wales. There were services in all the churches. The City Corporation have adopted an address of congratulation to her Majesty. Eavorable reports have been received from the telegraph construction party. Todd, who has arrived at Adelaide, says he intends organising an express horse service immediately. The Bangalore, with the supplementary mad, passed the Rangitoto at the Heads, but would not wait to tranship the New Zealand mails. Messrs. Vogel and Webb arrived on the 20th February. The s.s. Great Britain arrived this morning, after a passage of sixty days ; all well. Sydney, Feb. 20. There is great excitement about the Tambaroora mines, and companies are being formed. News from Fiji by the Quickstep states that the ifrngdove and Uora, of Auckland, have been seized by the Government for alleged selling of arms to the natives. Green convicted of indecency at Melbourne, received ihe first instalment of his flogging, and appeared to suffer considerahiy.

Two boys, Campbell and Smith, have been drowned iu the Yarra. Camp, bell was drowning, when Smith went to his rescue, and both persished. Austin, the levanting Secretary to the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. Moss, who gave a thief in the act a blow which terminated fatally, was sentenced to a few hours' detention, till the Court at Melbourne rose. " Talk on Change " in the " Australasian, says, when treating of the deficiency of the Melbourne water supply—" The most serious difficulty which has arisen out of the deficiency of water, was that represented by a, deputation (consisting of the sufferer himself) to the Minister of Public Works. This unfortunate was the hon. the Speaker, who (terrible to relate) has been obliged to shave himself in sodawater. The Sandhurst correspondent of the " Leader " writes as follows :—" An attempt is being made by two or three of the public companies to reduce the miners' wages The North Hustler's Company gave the miners in their employ the option of either working eight hours at £2 2s. per week, or nine hours at £2 ss. per week, which they have refused to accept. The men refused to go to work on Monday morning on those terms, and the underground works are at present for the most part stopped." The Victorian Mint will be opened, it is understood in April next, when they will coinmene the business of manufacturing gold coin. One feature of the new industry will be that the sovereigns will be superior (as most Australian products are) to the imported article, for it is proposed to use silver instead of copper as an alloy. Although it is not proposed to mint silver, a suggestion made to strike a five-shilling gold piece is likely to be carried out.

Mr Barber, the secretary of the Yackandandah sliire, committed suicide by taken strychnine. The cause of the rash deed is unknown.

At a dinner given at Ballarat, the hon. Mr Duffy wound up his speech as follows:—We have every inducement to unite, for there are here all the conditions of a happy and prosperous country, if we agree to enjoy its blessings in peace and goodfellowahip. The sun in his circuit does not look upon a land where individual and public liberty is more secure, where industry has a more suro reward, where a career ia wider open to capacity and intogrity, or where more genial skies shed health and pleasure

on a people, We have all the elements of a great nation in the seed. I may apply to Australia the graphic language of one of my friends—we have more Saxons on this continent than King Arthur had when he founded the realm of England ; we have more Celts than King Brian had when he drove tho Danes into the surges of Clontarf; we have more Normans than followed William the Conqueror to Hastings ; and to fuse these into a nation, it only needs the honest adoption of the sentiment that we are all one Australian people." A farewell dinner was given to Earl Belmore by members of the Church of England, Sydney, previous to hig leaving by the Sobraon for England. Sir Alfred Stephens, Chief Justice, has assumed Acting-Governorship, The Jason has sailed from Sydney for London with 1-14,000 pounds preserved meats. Mrs Young stabbed her husband, a butcher at Gulgong, fatally. The barque Indus, coal-laden, from Newcastle for Duuedin, foundered off the Dromedary. The crew landed in their boat at Bega Congratulatory addresses have been adopted by the Legislature and City Corporation of Adelaide for presentation to her Majesty on the recovery of the Prince of Wales. Mr Manning, a young Sydney barrister, recently appointed AttorneyGeneral, has been drowned near Levuka.