AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2483, 23 April 1909, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS.

PATHETIC LOVE STORY. A shocking, tragedy occurred in Hobart last week and was briefly reported in the cable news. A young couple were affectionately attached to each other, and had been engaged for some time, but opposition was met with to their marriage. In a fit of despair the girl took strychnine. She admitted to a policeman that she had taken strychnine. Constable Barker conveyed her with all haste to the general hospital. •Everything possible was done for the unfortunate girl, hut medical aid was unavailing,' and she died within an hour or two of her admission. On her lover, whose name, is Attwell, learning of her death, lie was terribly distressed, and made up his mind to die also. He openly threatened to poison himself. Att-' well was , employed on the barge Eveline, lying at the Market Wharf. A young man named Miller did all lie could to persuade him not to commit so rash a deed; and. thinking the better plan to thwart him was to endeavor to stop the sale of poison to him, left him, and in post-haste ran off to various chemists to warn them. One chemist whom he visited, told Miller that Attwell had been in three minutes before him and asked for poison, but it was refused him. Miller had acquainted Sergeant Ward of. Attwell s expressed intention to do away with himself, and that officer was at the barge Eveline when Miller returned from his errand shortly after 11 o'clock. Attwell had been successful in obtaining some strychnine, and had swallowed sufficient to‘place himself in the greatest jeopardv. He was found lying -on the Market Wharf in great pain, and in a dying condition. SOLITARY CONFINEMENT. The Victorian Premier (Mr Murray) has come to the conclusion that there should he some alteration in the present system of punishment by means of solitary confinement. He thinks th&t a riotous prisoner may well he shut up by himself for a few hours of solitary confinement until he becomes orderly; but he thinks the sentences of solitary confinement now undergone by prisoners have generally a bad, rather than a good, effect. As Chief Secretary, he is head of the department governing prisons, and he says he will not hesitate to put an end to solitary confinement in all cases but those in which he believes a little of it would be good. VICTORIAN LABOR COUNCIL. The annual conference of the Victorian Political Labor Council was commenced at the Trades Hall, Melbourne, on Friday April 9. The president in his address, said that in October, 1908, there were 171" Labor members in the Parliaments of Australia. Since then Victoria had returned six more, Queensland one, and South Australia one for the Northern Territory. Instead of the land policy and industrialism, the question of finance should, he. thought, be the main plank in their platform', in order that they might he enabled to carry out proposals of a Federal character, such as those recommended at the Brisbane conference. TERRIBLE BURNING ACCIDENT. A young woman, Elsie Wilson, was the victim of a horrible burning accident at Molong (N.S.W.). She was preparing a beeswax and turpentine solution in the kitchen of the Post Office Hotel, when some of the solution got into the. fire, which blazed up and ignited her dress. She rushed through the hotel, her clothes ablaze from her waist upwards. A man named Dengate succeeded in tearing off portion of the burning garments" when she again got away, and was caught by the landlord, Mr Press, who divested her of the remainder of her clothes, when she rushed into the street, where a blanket was thrown about her.

The unfortunate girl was found to have sustained frightful injuries, being literally roasted from her hips upwards. She was admitted to the hospital, but no hopes were entertained of her recovery.

Messrs Press and Dengate also received severe injuries to the hands in the endeavor to tear off the burning garments. ,

“EMPIRE-BUILDERS, LIMITED.” Air W. S. Bromliead, one of the originators of the association entitled “The Empire-Builders, Limited,” which was formed in London at the beginning of last year for the purpose of encouraging and assisting by emigration the peopling of large unoccupied areas of the British dependencies, and principally Canada and has arrived in Melbourne on board the Gel'l'Mli mail steamer Zi,eten, with a party of 12 immigrants, the first, he hopes, of many hundreds of British agriculturists to arrive in this State. Air Bromhead stated that he has had a great deal of experience in settling work in Canada, and has conducted many parties from Great Britain to that country, all of whom are doing well.

“The association,” he continued, “lias now decided to make strenuous efforts to do something for Australia, and this is the first experimental party. The plan is to form what we call working parties, members of which, instead of working individually, will all pull together on the share system in holdings contiguous to one another.”; The immigrants were met on arrival by an officer of the Closer Settlement B o a r d.