Murrumbidgee

News From The Interior. (From our various Correspondents.)

The Sydney Herald

13 June 1842

The generality of your readers, in this part of the world, upon the receipt of your journal, cast their eyes a once, to the paragraphs headed, "News from the Interior"; everyone is glad to see how his friends in the neighbouring districts are getting on - whether they have good crops, a prosperous lambing, and fine weather; or, on the other hand, if they have been robbed by bushrangers, speared by blacks, or drowned by floods. I therefore trust a few lines from this part of the country will not be unacceptable.  

Since February, we have had a series of very fine rains, scarcely a fortnight elapsing without a wet day or two, in consequence of which the feed is very luxuriant, and all kinds of stock in most excellent condition.

A few weeks since a flock of scabby sheep, travelling through this neighbourhood, was so hunted by the various flock-masters, that after being penned up on a cattle-run for more than a week, the overseer in charge of them was obliged to cut their throats and burn them. I hope this will be a warning to any parties who may be rash enough to attempt to travel with diseased sheep in any other month than the one appointed by the Act.

Our district has been pretty free from bushrangers lately, except on the Fame River, where there are two ruffians constantly at work pillaging the stations in that neighbourhood.

Why don't they take them? everyone asks. If they mean the Tumut corps, under the command of Mr. Bingham, the question is easily answered; because they are of no more use than a fiddle without strings. I would have said a musket without a lock, but the simile smacks too much of the military to be applied to such a set of undrilled crawlers.

No one, however, can find much fault with Mr. Bingham in his civil capacity; he is most unremitting in his attention to his duties as Commissioner of Crown lands; nevertheless, he wants a little more decision in his character; he is too fond of trying to please all parties, (a thing he never can accomplish), and though that is a fault which "leans to virtue's side," I hope if this meets his eye he will take the hint, and try to amend it.

Mr. B. is of but little use as a magistrate, having no one to act with him. This is most strange, as he is surrounded by gentlemen of the highest respectability, who might at once he put on the commission, if the proper steps were taken.

The want of magistrates is severely felt in this very populous district.