The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-04 00:00:00

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

The Government of South Australia proposes to con-
struct a railway 200 miles northward from Port Augusta.
An offer has been received from England to construct the
line upon a good guarantee of interest at the rate of 5h- per
cent. for £3,600 per mile, half the earnings of the line over
the interest to be paid to the Government until
the guarantee is liquidated. The line is to be
completed within thirty months of the arrival in
England of the mail after the contract is signed.
Tongariro, the only active volcano in the Australasian
group, which is situated in the province of Auckland,
New Zealand, has recently shewn unusual signs of per-
turbation. At times immense volumes of dense black
smoke were emitted from the crater, and loud reports,
which were at times likened to the boom of heavy
artillery, at others to the noise caused by the falling
of an immense body of matter, were heard on the
plains at short intervals. A broad stream of red-
hot lava was distinctly visible flowing down the side of
the mountain in a wavy, irregular mass ; and in the
night, the flames issuing from the crater were described
as forming a highly interesting and beautiful spectacle.
Some of the Queensland gold-fields are turning out
extremely well. Amongst the yields recently obtained at
the Gympie was one of I,ooooz. from only 10 tons of
quartz.

The ex-Queen of Spain has arrived at Brussels,

Dr, George Hanbury, house surgeon at one of the
Liverpool dispensaries, died on Friday night from scarlet
fever, which he had contracted in the fulfilment of his
professional duties.

The premises of Messrs. T. and J. T. Powell,
leather factors, Lime-street, London, were destroyed by
fire on Saturday afternoon. The loss, it is said, will
amount to many thousand pounds.

HOME GOVERNMENT FOR IRELAND. The
" Federal " party are about to hold their second monthly
meeting in the itotundo, Dublin. The number of mem-
bers of the society is increasing. A council has been
elected, and it is understood that one of their measures
will be the calling attention to illustrations of the evils of
centralisation presented in occurrences of the day.
The Overland China Mail, of August 18th, says
the negotiations connected with the Tientsin tragedy
remain in the same position, failing instructions from
Europe. It is suspected that the official telegrams viol
Kiachta have been intercepted and detained. The;feeling
gains ground that, if the two mandarins directly impli-
cated be beheaded, war may not follow.

THE HALFPENNY POSTAGE IN LIVERPOOL.—At
the Liverpool Post Office the coming into operation of
the halfpenny postage made the officials exceedingly
busy. They were quite sold out of postal cards at an
early hour in the afternoon, having sold no less than
£5OO worth, or 240,000. There are eight collections
during the day, and when the fourth collection was
completed, about 2,500 of the cards had passed through
the central office. One firm of stationers and printers
sent in about 15,000 trade circulars with the halfpenny
stamp attached. A well-known coaldealer had bought
several thousands of the postal cards and printed his list
of prices at the back, which he distributed by thousands
through the Poyt-office on Saturday. Some person posted
the card before 12 o'clock on Friday night, and they were
sent back with.2d. a piece to pay on them. One news-
paper at least the Bristol Mirror —had continued
to send out sheets with the old impressed red
stamp, and the recipients were mulcted in 2d. each. The
Post-office officials, besides all the extra work thus en-
tailed, have to keep minute returns for the week of the
operation of the new system, and they are nearly at their
wits' end to get through all that is required of them. The
public should aid the ready delivery of the increased mass,
of correspondence by universally adopting letter boxes in
their doorways.

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