AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 960, 9 April 1872, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

About 100 miners are annually killed by accidents in Victoria. The cultivation of hops is rapidly extending in Victoria. The City Corporation of Melbourne is being fiercely assailed for forming a refuse depot near a populous part of the city. A Coursing Club is being formed in Melbourne. Between 40 and 50 insurance companies carry on business in Victoria. The great organ in the Melbourne Town Hall contains 4373 pipes. Jem Mace and O'Baldwin are going. to fight for the championship of the world. The transcontinental telegraph line is now not expected to be completed this year. The Cagli Opera Troupe have temporarily suspended their performances in Adelaide on account of the heat. Three million gallons of water were daily used in Ballarat during the late hot weather. At Melbourne, last month, Hewitt ran a mile in 4min. 30sec. Eats caused a fire iu Melbourne by which £2OOO worth of damage was done, by nibbling matches. The North-Eastern Eailway, Victoria, is expected to be opened for traffic next month. Melons have been selling in Melbourne at 2d each. During a two mile walking race in Melbourne, one of the competitors, named Lyall, fainted. The Adelaide Paper Bag Manufactory has been destroyed by fire. 353jOzs of gold were obtained in two days recently from the Prussians' claim at Stockyard Creek, Gipps Land. There have been four changes of Ministry in South Australia since November last. At Geelong an Oddfellow has been expelled from the Order for an intrigue with the wife of another member. A new Monthly, devoted to Spiritualism, has been started by Mr Sinclair at Sydney. Madame Carandini, with the Misses Carandini and Mr Seerwin, bave returned to Victoria after a professional tour in Tasmania. A writer in the " Australasian " describes New Zealand as a " volcanic heap of upraised cinders." A Chinaman was flogged in Melbourne Gaol the other day. He howled terribly throughout the castigation. A liquor analyst is employed in Victoria, who visits all the public houses, notes the quality of their drink, and reports accordingly to the Board of Health. March is regarded as the " suicidal month" in Victoria, aa November is in Englan,';. The yield of gold in Victoria, during the first two months of this year, shows a decrease as compared with the same i criod of 1871. The Launceston and Deloraine Eailway, in Tasmania, a Government line, is running at a loss of £IOO a week. A peculiar and disgraceful robbery has been perpetrated by a Chinaman near Beech worth. He met on the road a girl twelve years of age, took her into the bush, tied her to a tree, and literally stripped her naked, decamping with her clothes. In the Buninyong paper there lately appeared the following advertisement of birth :—" On the 7th inst., Mrs William Waters, of a son. Mother doing well; father happy. Child's weight, lGlbs 2iozs." The noble savage seems to have a remarkable proclivity for the shadier side of civilization. There are two specimens of the race in Melbourne, pne, a Maori, occupies himself in selling cigars, after having gone through a career of duplicity as the medium of a travelling phrenologist; the Fijian is a competitor at swimming matches, lam inclined to think that the simplicity of the Polynesian is very much exaggerated. So soon as you have civilized him to such an extent that he will not eat his enemy, he takes to cheating him.