A VISIT TO MELBOURNE AFTER MANY YEARS.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XIV, Issue 1807, 28 February 1885, Page 2

A VISIT TO MELBOURNE AFTER MANY YEARS.

[By Craw Linn.] Melbourne is well supplied with amuse* ments of all kinds, and the theatres are as well filled now as in the days o£ poor G. V. Brooke, who was drowned in th© B.s. London. Poor Brooke, what a world of loving friends he left "behind him, and yet how his generous nature was imposed upon while he lived; his purse was pro iono picblico ; all his great earnings went to supply the wants of others. He had nothing, literally uothing, that he could call his own but his marvellous genius, and that he could not be robbed of. When he and George Coppin dissolved partnership, Ooppin took the Oremorne Gardens, on the banks of the Yarra, at Richmond, and Brooke had the Theatre Royal, valued at thirty-three thousand pounds. In less than two years a benefit had to be got up to supply the means to send him Home. Who had the muney ? for he never spent it. He had not the time, and he did not gamble. Perhaps Mr Harry Edwards and Mr George Fawcett Eowe (or George Fawcett as he was called here), his two managers, could throw some light upon the subject ; however, it is of no consequence, as Mr Toots would say, now, but he was a man, take him for all in all we ne'er shall look upon his like again. The old Royal is gone too — burned down. It was always a mystery how it was built. John Black built it, but he never paid for the building of it — the South Yarra brickmakers built it, he used up every man jack of them. The great side wall to be seen from Swanston street then exposed to view bricks of every colour ever known. On the morning of the night upon which the first performance was to take place there was not a seat in the pit, and some bailiffs tried to arrest Mr Black, but the carpenters assisted him to mount to the flies, and he stayed there all day while the bailiffs remained upon the stage. At sundown he came down, and as the bailiffs could not then legally arrest him they departed. This was the first comedy enacted at the first Eoyal. The theatre was a success, and Mr Black swam clear of his difficulties. He afterwards married Miss Emma Stanley, of the Seven Ages of Women fame, and is a station owner in Queensland now, I hear. A large new Royal is built now, and is as well patronised as the old. The Melbournites are a theatre-going people, and Bourke street on a Saturday night is a sight worth seeing. There are thousands of people passing to and fro in ono continuous stream, some on pleasure bent to the various theatres and music halls, some shopping, and others mere strollers and lookers on. The public houses do a roaring trade, and Bourke street is full of them. The open space that was once Paddy's Market, where Osbourne, the patriot, used to hold forth to admiring crowds of loafers, is, like the patriot, no more, but, unlike the patriot, something has risen from its ashes — a huge block of buildings, several hotels and shops of every description. No less than three arcades, extending from Bourke street to Little Collins street, and one of the best built livery stables in Melbourne now occupy the ground formerly such a busy scene of marketing on Saturday nights. The stalls and the hucksters are gone, and so are the people who purchased at them ; or if they are not they have improved with the times, and perhaps the very hucksters of five-and-twenty years ago are the shopkeepers of to-day. Poverty seems to be dead and buried though, for there is not a sign of anything of the kind to be seen now. The rubbish that was circulated through New Zealand some time ago about the misery and distress in Melbourne is the greatest bosh, or if there is any it is that kind which does not howl but hides itself I was speaking on the subject to a gentleman who laughed and said, " Go and try to hire labouring men." "Do you mean to say that they are not to be had ?" I asked. "I want fifty now," he replied, " to clear some land for sale of all the gorße and rubbish that has sprung up on it, and my agent can only obtain twenty." " At what wages ?" I inquired. " Eight shillings a day for eight hours." Reading (matter continued on fourth page).

" Then you mean to say that there really is nothing of the kind we have heard so much about it New Zealand." "It is all humbug," he said ; " working men are not to be had. Look around you and see the number of buildings going up, both in the city and the suburbs. Listen to the groans of the ladies about the servants. The factories swallow up the girls who should be domestic servants ; whether it is for their good or not that they should have their evenings' and their Sundays' time will show, but just now servants are not to be had ; and as for the tradespeople their independence shows how they are doing." "But this was not always the case," I observed. " How do you account for i it?" ' " Graham Berry's reign is over, confidence is returning, and money is easy. There was always plenty of money in the country, but those who had it were afraid to part with it. Now it is different, and the capitalists are speculating ; so of course every class of the community reaps the benefit. Any stranger need only walk through the streets of Melbourne to see that we are in a high state of prosperity." And indeed I thought so too. The trains come into town crowded all day long, the streets are thronged with. ■well-dressed people evidently with business on their heads, the shops are stocked with the choicest goods, and the shopkeepers sell them and get paid for them, for the papers record few in- . solvencies, and as for the professional class they all seem to be making small fortunes. There is a change — a great change — for the better, the city is re- , building and upon an improved plan, and land in it is not to be had except at a most enormous price ; and yet rents are comparatively moderate. Landlords now seem to see that it won't do to drive a man into the Insolvent Court in order to get rid of a lease that is crushing him. Men want to work for themselves, not for landlords. The owners of property in New Zealand have not yet realised that fact. . ■ | -There is a small class there that I ►^froked in vain for in Melbourne — I mean the seedy man, with a three days , old collar who haunts the public houses /' on the look out for a cheap drink, and ' who is to be found in billiard-rooms and at auction sales, and never seems to have any employment or to want any. They are to be found in every city in New Zealand, but especially in Dunedin and Christchurch. Now the hotels in Melbourne are busy all day long, but men do not loaf about ; they get what they want and go. lam now alluding to the second-class hotels that do a great bar trade, not to such hotels as Menzies', Scot's, the Oriental, and l Mrs Henningham's. At these hotels are always to be seen men apparently lounging about, but one glance will inform you that they are men of means, ,^_»nd from the look of them not much used to the bar. The masher, too, seems scarce. He is pretty much laughed at, and the young fellows are too fond of atnletic sports to stand him. There did not appear to be so many loungers in Collins street in the afternoon, now as I remember five-and-twenty years ago. Of course there are a good many, and Gunter's, the pastry cook's, is Ipretty full of them about four o'clock. The water supply to Melbourne is perhaps as good as any in the world. , There is a never-failing supply ; no dependence upon mere rainfall ; no fear of a water famine, as there was j in "Wellington some three summers agp. The water comes from the Van Yean, some 20 miles from Melbourne ; it is a large reservoir, which is fed by ugjfr^Bif er Plenty, and when the reseris flooded by excessive rainfall, the river carries off the surplus water. About 1854 there was great discussion about the advisability of bringing this water to Melbourne. Some said it was not fit for household purposes, as the Van Yean was only a swamp. Dr 1 McAdam was in favour of the scheme, and contended that the water was perfectly wholesome. It was carried at last, and the swamp was turned into a reservoir. It required only one embankment, and then could be always kept full, without the Plenty r" river ran dry, which has not happened and is not likely to. Pipes are now laid to all the suburbs, and the ■water is carried seven miles round the city. The people can use what quantity they please, just the same as gas, and are charged for it in the same "way by meter, which accounts now for the beauty and freshness of the gardens, as they can be watered every night at a small expense. The watercarts are kept going in the city all day. They have superceded the hose, as the streets are too full of people and vehicles of all kinds to allow of their being used without great inconvenience. Everything is changed from what it was, except the horse sale yards on Bourke street hill, between Elizabeth and Queen streets. They are just the same, and the head of the celebrated mare Alice Hawthorne is still over the auctioneer's box at rare old George Watson's, who is to the fore and master of the hounds yet. * The. old veteran sportsman, who has and run his horses so straight Hfer nearly forty years, is as upright in ■PJbocty now as he always was in prinW ciple, and looks good for another 20 '■ years. The Masonic Order is very strong in Melbourne, and a grand new hall is about to erected. A well-known auctioneer, who is also a P.G.M., sold a few weeks ago, to be removed to i make room for the new hall, what was once one of the prettiest cottage resii" dences in Melbourne. It was situated at the east end of Little Flinders y street, and stood in a large garden, had La paved courtyard at the back, and a l^Kge brick stable and coach-house.

The place was the private residence years • ago of Mr Octavius Williams, wine merchant. The whole of the building was sold for a little over a hundred pounds, the stone pitchers in the courtyard fetching as much as the house, which was of wood, and is said to have cost more than a thousand pounds to build. But the Masons bought the ground, and did not care for such a trifle. In a week the whole was cleared away, and a contract let for the new building, which is to cost ten thousand pounds. Near this spot is the last of the old private houses left in the city. It was the swell mansion of the olden time, and occupied by Mr Cruikshank, of the firm of Dalgetty, Cruikshank, and Co. It stands upon the quarter-acre extending from Flinders street to Little Flinders street, along Stephen street, and faces the Yarra. There is a beautiful view from the house, as the ground here is high. The gardens are prettily laid out, and now there are some fine old trees. It is a most valuable property, and would have been sold and cut up years ago, only there is a hitch in the title. It would fetch an enormous sum. Mr Cruikshank lived here beforo there was a house between Princess Bridge and Hobson's Bay, when the municipalities of Emerald Hill and Sandridge were unknown, or before there was a house at Brighton or half-a-dozen at St. Kilda. Young as the Colony is, it is a relic of bygone days. When this house was built, and the other old ones now gone, people fancied they lived in the country ; and so they did, for beyond was nothing but primeval forest. The quarter-acre sections, when originally sold, fetched about twenty-five pounds each ; they would cut up for as many thousands now. Perhaps there ia no city in the world where land originally so cheap has become of such ( great value in so short a time. The breweries are small towns compared with thoße in New Zealand. McCracken's have a plant with which they can brew 100 hogsheads a day; Terry's West End Brewery, 80 ; and Aitkin's, in tke Victoria Parade, about the same quantity. Aitkin's also own the distillery, and produce a very fair spirit. No one has made the remark about their liquor the Dunedin literary Bohemian made of that distilled there. He said it wanted "keeping" — meaning, instead of age, that ifc ought never to be sold. The largest stores in Melbourne are R. Goldsborough and Co.'s wool stores, those of Clough and Co., and the New Zealand Mercantile and Agency Co. Mr R Goldsborough is still alive, and the great sporting woolbroker looks almost as young as when, nearly 30 years ago, he used to ride his grand horse Jack in from South Yarra. With respect to the streets of the city, many of them are in a state of eruption, on account of the sides being laid down with wooden blocks. Shortly there will be tramways down all the streets, as also to the suburbs, and for a distance of seven or eight miles round Melbourne. The greatest tramway scheme in the world is now on foot in Melbourne, and will be worked upon the principle of those in London, the carriages being drawn by a steel rope underground. The chief engineer is Mr George Duncan, who has sole charge. He built the Dunedin tramways — in fact he is a native of that city, and was educated at its High School. This gentleman returned about a year ago from a tour all through America and Europe — a tour he took to perfect himself in this particular engineering work, which he calculates will take about fire years to complete. He has therefore leased a house in East Melbourne. It is somewhat a reproach that a Dunedin man should build the Melbourne tramways, and one gentleman remarked to another who waß talking rather largely about young Melbourne talent : "How is it you have to get a Dunedin High School boy to build your tramways ?" Young Melbourne was not to be cornered, so he said : "Perhaps we get him cheaper." But this is not the case. Mr George Duncan happens to have no occasion to work for a living at all, but he has an actual passion for engineering, and has spent a small fortune in perfecting himself. He is remarkably clever, and the Melbourne tramway authorities know it. They may, after all, get him as cheap, but not at a low figure, as his salary is two thousand a year. We will now leave Melbourne proper, and proceed across Fitzroy Gardens to East Melbourne.

. TIDE TABLE. High Water Sun - FxBBUABY. Morn. Even, rises, sets. H.M. H.M. H.M. H.M. 22 Sunday .. 11.31 — 6.41 6.45 83 Monday .. 0.17 0.35 5.41 6.44 24 Tuesday .. 1.18 2. S 5.43 6.42 25 Wednesday 3. 1 3.40 5.44 6.41 26 Thursday .. 4.20 5. 0 5.45 6.40 27 Friday .. 5.29 • 5.58 5.46 6.39 28 Saturday .. 6.21 6.44 5.47 6.37 Moon: First Quarter, 22nd, 10.20 p.m.