AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 938, 7 March 1872, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

A claim at Majorca has struck stone twenty feet thick, estimated to yiold 140 ounces to the ton. Subsequently the discovery of a reef still richer was reported. James Trevanon, the wealthy Bendigo mining speculator, charged with a criminal offence upon a little girl, attempted to hush the thing up, but was prevented by the Crown preliminary investigation. The British Consul at Fiji has forwarded a despatch requesting that a ship of war should be sent for protection. George Bowsher has committed suicide by placing himself in front of a railway engine, at Melbourne. Five Sisters of Mercy arrived by the Star of Peace, with the intention of founding an institution in Victoria. Middling, a mining manager, who was indicted for manslaughter by allowing the use of an unfit rope in a Bendigo mine, has been acquitted. On the 4th February, a man known in Geelong as Fred was taken to the Geelong Hospital suffering from pri-

ration of want. The following is given as his tale by the " Geelong Advef tiser " —" He says that he left the hospital, where he had managed to hoard up some 40s. during a residence of sixteen months in the accident ward, about nine weeks ago. In the course of three weeks his money was spent, but he contrived to exist, by getting a shilling here and there for chopping wood, and cleaning out back yards. He took shelter at night in an empty house near the convent, but having neither bedding nor blankets fell a victim to bis old complaint—rheumatism. For three weeks he alleges that he lay in this building without food of any kind. On one occasion he got to the door, which had remained open, and staggering against it found himself locked in, and had it not been for the timely discovery of his condition by a person on the 4th of February, he must inevitably have died from starvation." " JSgles n in the Australasian relates the following story of a gentleman who called a meeting of his creditors, and laid his affairs before them. After looking at the books, a friendly creditor pointed out that a large business had been done, and still mie;ht be done: but that no one could manage it so well as the gentleman who had called them together. He therefore proposed that the business should be carried on for the benefit of the creditors by this gentleman, to whom an allowance of £7OO a year might be given. But to this the person directly interested promptly and decisively objected. He couldn't, he said, live on £7OO per annum, and he wasn't going to try. If they wanted cheap labor they hud better try elswhere.