The Mayor of Sydney, Mr. John Williams, gave a fancy ball to about a thousand of the citizens last week, at the Prince of Wales Theatre. In the House of Assembly a resolution has been adopted not to vote a salary to any public officer hereafter accepting a seat in the Legislature. By another resolution it has been determined to open to settlement Tasman's Peninsula, a district containing 140,000 acres of Crown land. The news from Fingal gold-fields, although not reporting any great results, is still of a nature to encourage men to persevere in looking for them. The estimates have passed the Assembly with little alteration.
Accounts brought by the Niagara from New Zealand are encouraging.
The colony is prosperous. The gold-fields there are steadily increasing in value. They have now been discovered about eight months, and 100,000 worth of gold, in dust and nuggets, have already been obtained from them. They are situated close to Massacre Bay, where a boat's crew of the famous circumnavigator, Tasman, were massacred by the natives. This bay is fifty miles from Nelson, and in August last 1000 persons were at work at the diggings.