MELBOURNE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 270, 12 November 1923, Page 9

MELBOURNE.

—• ■ I IN PEACE AND RIOT. I UNDERWORLD OF CRIME. WORSE THAN SYDNEY. (From Our Special Correspondent.) MELBOURNE, November 7. Melbourne i_ served by cable trams ■ throughout the city, the motive power being obtained from contact with a j circulating wire underground. As a car j approaches a corner turn it gathers j speed, which carries it around to pick ; up contact with the cable on the next circuit. The cable cars in Melbourne j appear to be slower than electric ears ; in Sydney, but it is staved that the quicker starting and quicker stopping of the cable cars actually give the latter the greater average speed. Electric trains run on suburban lines as feeders to the electric cars and railway. Steps have been taken with a view to clectri- | fixation of the whole of the Melbourne ! tramway system, though the authorities are understood to be by no means tin- | animous on the subject. The scheme. , involves an estimated expenditure of over nine millions on new lines, Melbourne railways are run by steam . and also by electricity, electrification having beeii applied on practically all the suburban lines, going in one direction a distance of 25 miles, and in other directions distances up to 17 miles. The electric train runs from Spencer Street station to St. Kilda, :t_ miles, with three stops, in nine minutes. Enormous Railway Traffic. It is said in Melbourne that more people go through the Flinders Street railway station (the main city station 1 tlian through any other station in the world. After a census taken over one week it was reported that over 200,000 persons passed through the station daily. This appears absurd when one sees the enormous traffic in Sydney city and suburbs, but it must be remembered that Sydney has an outlet not possessed by Melbourne in her great and rapidlygrowing marine suburbs and her numerous and well-appointed fleet of Jerry steamers, running almost continuously. The population of Melbourne city and suburbs, within a ten-mile radius, is 757.000. and it was estimated in the year 1921 that the population occupied 170.000 houses. There is at present a great housing shortage, and rents are high. Last year, within the ten-mile radius, eight thousand new houseß were built, and" it is hoped to quite overtake the shortage of dwellings inside another ten years. A Model City. Melbourne is a •'model" "modern" city compared with Sydney, its wide streets serving well to set out its great blocks and shops, of which there seems to be no end, and no limit to the extent of their operations. It was in this area that the rioters did such deadly execu- . tion, and it is staggering to visualise so j many of Melbourne's great retail establishments wrecked, their line plate-glass windows smashed, the depleted stocks protected with temporary wooden barricades, and more and more destruction held off at the point of the revolver. Melbourne's Underworld. To the casual visitor Melbourne appears to be a most orderly city, and its inhabitants well-mannered and wellbehaved. But as you talk with people there you get another impression—of Melbourne's "underworld" and crime. "Is Melbourne worse than Sydney in this respect!" you ask, and the answer is very definitely In the affirmative. You are* told to read the reports of serious crime in the daily papers, and the conviction grows that there is a large, lawless element only too ready to seize on such an opportunity as the police strike afforded to "lay the city waste." "Don't let your wife and daughter be in the streets after dark unattended," said a Melbourne f.'iend. or they will be in grave danger of insult or assault. This is not the case in Sydney, where women or one woman alone can walk with safety on the street footpath within the ordinary "shopping" area. Respectable women, of course, do not "loiter" on the footpaths, because, there are others who "do" loiter, and do it very openly. Order Out of Confusion. The police in Melbourne performed » rery important work in regulating the street traffic, and they did it most efficiently. Melbourne tramways are not run in "circles" as is largely done in Sydney, but are worked on the block system, and the crossings at all times of the day, and particularly at midday and shop closing time, to tlie visitor seem of the most inextricable confusion, from which the genius policemen (before the strike) extricated order and maintained a crowded but continuous stream of traffic, safe and ordinarily without mishap. "Sport Mad." I heard Melbourne described by a public man who is not given to exaggeration as "sport mad." The people, be said, talk nothing but horse racing and sport, and the papers are largely devoted to sporting news betting quotations and "tips" being prominent j features. Public interest in football | occasionally overshadows everything ; else. It is not unusual for a crowd of j eighty thousand to be distributed over ' the four principal matches of a Saturday afternoon, and there have been as many as G4.000 on the Melhourne Cricket Ground to witness the football final.