A M r . Willoughby was one day in April out with a five-year-old son, near "Arthur's Seat." S o m e Aborigines lurking about kidnapped the boy. After several days' search the dead body of the child was found at a blacks' camping-place, but it showed no marks of violence. T h e Aborigines confessed to the kidnapping with the view of exacting a reward for the restoration, and that the cause of death was the child's inability to eat the food given to it. T h e first line of railway proposed in the colony was from Geelong to the River Glenelg, on the South Australian border. T h e Geelongites were the originators of this mad-cap undertaking, but it went no further than a grand preliminary "blowing," which came off at a public meeting held at Mack's Hotel, on the 13th July, 1846. A n estimate of the annual traffic anticipated was submitted to the gathering, viz. :— £ s. d. 7062 bales of wool, 2000 3000 3000 1000 1000
2,647 17 0
at 7s. 6d. tons stores, at 80s. passengers going and coming the whole line, at 40s. do. do. intermediate places, at 20s. tons salt, at 20s. tons agricultural produce, at 20s. Total1
8,000
0
0
12,000
0
0
6,000
0
0
1,000
0
0
1,000
0
0
,£30,647 17 0
A Mr. Alfred Diaper, aged 30, committed suicide on 25th August, on board the schooner " Diana," from Williamstown to Western Port. H e was addicted to intemperance, and had he remained alive untill the arrival of the next mail from England, would have inherited a large fortune through the death of his father, a wealthy grocer at Portsmouth. Deceased left h o m e in 1839, with an appointment as Private Secretary to Colonel Campbell, then Governor of Sierra Leone, where he remained for some years, and thence went to Hobart T o w n . O n 17th September, 1846, three ladies residing near each other in the Eastern quarter of Melbourne, presented their husbands with twin pledges of affection. T h e triple event occurred not only on the same day, but at the same hour, 9 a.m., and its announcement was regarded as a most auspicious o m e n of the future "Vital" prosperity of the metropolis. During the same year it is remarked that the Jewish births were just one-twelfth of the whole of the British population of the colony. The first premises for which a publican's license was granted in Newtown (now Fitzroy) was a straggling weatherboard structure of four or five rooms. It was called The Travellers' Rest, and occupied the ground whereon n o w stands King's College in Nicholson Street. In 1846 it was kept by a Mr. Beveridge, and about 9 p.m. on Sunday, 13th September, the place was "stuck u p " by three armed m e n w h o escaped. In 1846 a project was started in Liverpool for forming a C o m p a n y to construct a railway from the new bridge in course of erection at Melbourne to Sandridge; and M r . D. Lennox, the then Superintendent of Bridges here, was reported to have m a d e a survey of the best route, but the affair collapsed. A narrow escape is recorded in a Melbourne newspaper on 27th August, 1 8 4 6 : — " M r . Stawell, the Barrister, has had several narrow escapes by flood and field, and w e n o w chronicle another, which was within an ace of terminating with the loss of his life. In attempting to swim his horse over the Saltwater River, he was carried down, horse and all by the current, and was within a few yards of being entangled in a tree, when he jumped off the animal, and with great difficulty reached the shore in safety. Mr. Stawell is very m u c h respected in Melbourne, both by the public and his
