AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 965, 26 April 1872, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

A swimming club has been formed in Melbourne. Mr Vogel bad a special train to take him to Buliarat. There are 300 children in the Indus! rial Schools in G eloug. The Victorian Parliamentary session will begin on the 30th inst. The use of artificial teeth is reported to be on the increase in Victoria. The manufacture of fine broadcloths has been commenced in Victoria. The personality of the lute Judge Macoboy was sworn under £3OOO. Fine specimens of ore have been found on one of the islands in Bass Strait. It is found in Victoria that the hawks chase and kill even full-grown hares. A station in the Monaro district, N.S.W., has been sold at 15s a head for sheep. The cost of erection of the Victorian Mint, which is now completed, was £70,000. The mining fever in Sydney is abating a little, as calls are beginning to be made. The rent paid by Mr Coppin for the Theatre Hoyal, Melbourne, was £BO a week. During the last five months a single firm at Geelonghas exported 276,1571 bs of butter. The competition amongst the Newcastle colliers has caused further concessions to buyers. For forcibly ejecting a tenant, a wealthy Bourke street butcher in Melbourne had to pay £4OO. According to Mr Vale, the two finest public buildings in Victoria are lunatic asylums. Packs of wild dogs chase travellers in the Western District of Victoria, after the manner of wolves. A marriage is about to take place at Ballarat between a bridegroom aged 14 and a bride 13. The personalty of the late Mr David Oglivy, solicitor, Melbourne, has been sworn under £34,000. Horse racing in Victoria, according to the " Age " has grown shady, and in some respects disreputable. The value of the cotton crop in Queensland last year was £IOO,OOO. This year it ia expected to be still greater. The deficiency in the yield of wheat in South Australia this year, owing to rust, is estimated at 60,000 tons. 198 German immigrants arrived at Hobart Town, from Hamburg, on March 25th. Eleven had died on the voyage. 4670zs of gold have been obtained from three bucketfuls of stone from the Golden Bar Reef, Kosewood, Queensland. In some districts of New South Wales, the pastures are so poor that the horses, from sheer starvation, can hardly walkThe Paramatta river murderers narrowly escaped being lynched in Sydney while being taken back to gaol from the Court. Some spurious silver coin is in circulation at Castlemaine. The coiners and nttorers are Chinese, one of whom has been caught.

The Ballarat Meat Preserving Co. have contracted with the Admiralty to supply 64,0001 bB. of preserved meat at 7d lb. The official report of the New Guinea Expedition disaster attributes the wreck of the Maria to the Captain's ignorance of navigation. " JEgles," writing in the " Australasian," says : A goodnatured old lady, who has been for many years habitually bestowing charity upon a peripatetic vendor of tapes and needles, lately remonstrated with him upon the smallness of his stock. The pretence of peddling smallwares too thinly disgusted the actual design of begging. " Well ma'am, you see money's scarce. I've had to spend a good deal lately on the roof of my house." "Tour house!" ejaculated the lady, " have you a house ?" 'Oh yes, I've always had a house of my own." " Then," said his patroness, " you are much better off than I am. I have to pay rent." Here is another instance of the kind of poverty which struggling householders are called upon to relieve in Victoria. The tailoring firm of Milton and Co., of Collins-atreet, have just executed a somewhat remarkable order. It is for a full dress uniform for Prince Abel, eldest son of Thakombau, King of Fiji. Photographs of this young gentleman are not uncommon in Melbourne, and as so represented, his athletic proportions are eaisly discernible, for his costume appears to consist of a girdle-cloth and a long puggeree tied scarfwise across his shoulders and round bis waist. " iEgles " in the " Australasian," thus refers to a new gastronomic luxury : —" Fried canaries. A young friend of mine (well known in Collinsstreet) has been spending some months at Madeira. In a letter by the last mail, he says that the favorite dish just now at the cafes in St Michael's is " fried canaries." They don't pay a pound apiece for canaries there—only a dollar a hundred in the canary season. Wasn't it Vitellius who betrayed a weakness for a stew of nightingale's tongues ? They are as materialistic in Madeira. It is some satisfaction to know that cooked canary isn't any nicer than sparrowpie.