boxes. Three cheers were called for, for Miss Hayes,
and were enthusiastically given. At about five minutes
to eight the acting manager's signal was heard, and the
curtain rose upon the company, about forty in number,
and the national anthem was sung, Mrs. Testar leading,
and the audience in the boxes remaining standing during
the same, as is customary amongst the assemblies of the
loyal. The theatrical lion is Mr. G.V. Brooke; and
Miss Catherine Hayes has been singing with immense
success and profit.

Melbourne is developing an increased taste for
journalism. Two weekly papers, the Telegraph and the
Pictorial Times, have recently appeared. There are
three monthlies, "The Monthly Magazine," "The
Rural Magazine," and " The Gardeners' Chronicle."
"Melbourne Punch, jun., Esq.," promises his weekly
appearance, on and after the 2nd of August; and a
"Medical Gazette," and a "Builder," "conducted by
the originator of the London publication of the same
name," were promised. A letter from Forest Creek
diggings says:—"The demand for weekly papers and
English periodicals is very great; the rivalry in selling
them is greater still—boys of all ages, and men of all
nations, are employed in their disposal, and even from
Castlemaine an agent started on horseback, with parcels
of Punch, Lloyd, Illustrated News, &c, armed with a
brazen trumpet, through which he shrieked forth the
titles of his journals in an improved penny-whistle style.

The accounts from Tasmania give a shocking view of
the amount and atrocity of crime in that settlement.
On the 26th of June, four men were hanged in front of
Hobarton Gaol. On the scaffold, one of them (Whelan)
confessed the crime of which he had been convicted,
viz., the murder of three gentlemen, Messrs. Green,
Dunn, and Axford, for the discovery of whose remains
large rewards had been offered without effect. Not only
did this hardened ruffian state all the particulars as to
the way in which the horrible crime was committed,
but stated where he had hid the bodies; and they have
since been found there in a state of decomposition. It
appears to have been his practice to stop his victims on
the road, to compel them by threats to go a short
distance into the bush, and then to shoot them.
According to his dying avowal he had murdered two other
persons after robbing them.

The advices from New South Wales speak of
prosperity and social improvement. Many persons heretofore
engaged in the search for gold have abandoned that
object for the equally remunerative and beneficial
pursuit of cultivating the soil. It is also remarked that
the vast congregation of persons at the diggings has
entirely changed the appearance of these localities.
Ballarat, instead of being only a gold field, is become a
city of some magnitude, with roomy warehouses, costly
shops with plate-glass windows, taverns, churches,
chapels, theatres, and assembly rooms; and last, not
least, a grammar school, in connection with the church,
for boys of the better class, fitting instruction being
given to such of the youth as can be made available for
the choir. Ballarat promises to become the capital of
the diggings, and is to have its representatives in the
Legislative Council. Notwithstanding the general
prosperity of the Australian colonies, many emigrants
who have left their native country in the hope of
bettering their condition, are in a state of most deplorable
destitution. They are almost wholly persons unskilled
either in agriculture or the mechanical arts, and consist
chiefly of clerks, shopmen, tutors, &c, of which classes
many more have arrived out than can obtain employment.
In numerous instances these unfortunates have
been found dying in hovels unfit for human habitation;
in some cases the destitute and sick father has been
compelled to witness his wife or children, hitherto
unused to hardship, resorting to repulsive expedients,
such as collecting rags and bones, or imploring charity,
in order to raise the means of keeping body and soul
together. Their privations in a foreign land, where
they were led to expect competence, if not affluence,
are rendered the more acute and painful by the memory
of home comforts unwisely and too hastily quitted. It
is to be hoped that the deplorable state of these poor
aliens will have the effect of deterring all persons but
mechanics and field-labourers from seeking employ in
these colonies, unless they are bound for the gold fields.

      NARRATIVE OF FOREIGN EVENTS.

The various English and French Official accounts of
the Storming of the Malakhoff and the Redan on the
8th of September, and the subsequent Fall of Sebastopol,
were given in last month's Narrative. A great
mass of details as to these events, contained in the
communications of newspaper correspondents, and letters
from officers and soldiers, have been received. From
these we extract some of the most interesting particulars.
The French, it will be remembered, began by an
assault on the Malakhoff. "Our soldiers," says a
correspondent of La Presse, "found themselves confronting
traverses of earth tolerably high, running into one
another, where the men could only advance by a step
at a time in following a winding course under the
enemy's fire. This way appeared to our soldiers too
long and dangerous. With that marvellous instinct
that distinguishes them, they soon found another way,
which the Russians had not thought of. Instead of
attacking these intricate defences, they turned them by
running along the embrasures, bounding like roebucks
from one battlement to the other, at the risk of falling
down a frightful precipice. In this way, to the great
amazement of the Russians, they reached the centre of
the position, and fell on them with fixed bayonets. . . .
No sooner had they been driven out of the redoubt
through the gorge that leads to the huge barracks
adjacent to the Malakhoff, and long supposed by us to
be a fort, than they strengthened their numbers,
brought up their reserves, and rushed back to the
ramparts with a fury quite unusual on their part. Our
soldiers drove them out headlong a second time. The
Russians were not beaten yet; they made another
desperate attempt; their prodigious efforts were foiled by
the cool intrepidity of our soldiers. Never, say the
actors in this terrible drama where the fate of Sebastopol
was being wound up—never did the Russians
display more gallantry, dash, and boldness. On this
occasion they did not retreat till they were crushed,
leaving behind them a hill of dead and wounded in the
gorge of the redoubt....... It was three o'clock, and
General M'Mahon sent to General Pelissier, who was
at the Green Mamelon, 500 metres distant from the
Malakhoff, behind a parapet of earth-sacks, a letter
thus worded: 'I am in the Malakhoff, and sure of
maintaining myself in it.'"

A full description of the assault on the Redan, the
struggle to retain it, and the final repulse of the British
troops is given by the correspondent of the Times,
whose letters, during the Crimean campaign, have
gained a European celebrity. A more striking picture
of a scene, almost unparalleled in the annals of war,
has perhaps never been painted. The length of the
account renders some abridgement necessary. It was
written on the night of the day of battle.

"The weather changed suddenly yesterday. This
morning it became bitterly cold. A biting wind right
from the north side of Sebastopol blew intolerable
clouds of harsh dust into our faces. The sun was
obscured; the sky was of a leaden wintry gray. Early
in the morning a strong force of cavalry, under the
command of Colonel Hodge, was moved up to the front
and formed a chain of sentries in front of Cathcart's
hill and all along our lines. Another line of sentries
in the rear of them was intended to stop stragglers and
idlers from Balaklava, and the object in view was
probably to prevent the Russians gathering any intimation
of our attack from the unusual accumulation of people
on the look-out hills. At 11.30 the Highland Brigade,