Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Thursday 14 December 1876, page 7


COUNTRY NEWS.

A discrepancy amounting to £568 has been discovered (says the Tarrengower Times) by the auditors for the Maldon Shire Council between the accounts of the rate collector and the treasurer.

The Marong correspondent of the Bendigo Advertiser records the following brave action :--A child of Mr Rawiller's a few days since got through the railway fence at a part of the Sandhurst and Inglewood line where a bush was growing from a stump, and this optical obstruction caused two gentle-men, who happened to see the child go on to the line, to endeavour to save it from the fast-approaching train. Finding that with all the speed they put on they could not save the poor little boy, they cooeyed to Mr M'Vitie, the stationmaster at Leichhardt, who immediately left the platform, and, at the imminent risk of his own life, snatched the little wanderer from the very jaws of death. So quick was the impulse and the action that, after throwing the child off the line, to some extent he hurt himself by batting against a stump. Mr M'Vitie is not now much the worse of the injury.

The Hamilton Spectator of the 12th inst. states that "the other night a young man, who lives on a farm near Bochara, went to sleep on a sofa after a day's hard work, and had been lying there some time when he got up and went outside. His companions observed that he walked with a staggering gait, but little notice was taken of the matter, as they expected him to rejoin them immediately. The somnambnlist--for such he was--passed through three or four gates, untying and re-tying the fastenings, which were of rope, and made his way to the woolshed. There he hung his coat upon a rail, took down a pair of shears he had been using in the daytime, and proceeded to sharpen them. He next caught a sheep, and had just finished shearing it when he was awoke by the sudden arrival of his friends, who had come with a lantern to search for him. The shock of awakening

caused him to tremble like a leaf, but be soon regained his equanimity. The sheep, we may add, was shorn as well as if the work had been performed in broad daylight, and the night was by no means a clear

one."