MELBOURNE.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1968, 26 August 1869, Page 2

MELBOURNE.

(From our own Correspondent.) August 16, 1869. We move—l cannot say so positively that we progress. I have been, since my last, a little more deeply impressed with the gullibility of some people whom one would have expected to be more astute than they are, and with the cleverness of some people already known to be clever. Hut I cannot truthfully say that that is progress. The town has also been favored with a lecture by a reverend schoolmaster, who flopped over ears and head into heterodoxy; but that is nothing at all new. He did certainly manage to be very self-extradictory, which (for Dr Bromby) is more nearly novel; but on the whole the sensation is faint, and rather smacks of regress than its opposite. Diamonds —perhaps I ought to say the diamond— produced the impressions first above mentioned, and the last lecture of the series got up by the Early Closing Committee those next in order. I may dismiss the latter by saying that though clever and quaint and humorous, Dr Bromby is far below his two immediate predecessors, both in these qualities and in originality. Wherever he got the substratum on which to found the fanciful interpretati ns of Scripture that he built up, I cannot say, but of this I am sure, that when the floods of fact shall arise, and the storms of criticism shall blow (if he be ever thought worthy of assault

by such floods and winds), the utter and equal rottenness of both the foundation and the building, will be made manifest. I cannot say that the fall thereof will be great, for the whole affair is but a card house of whims, and I never yet knew anybody either deafened or hurt by the demolition of card houses or whimsicalities.

But the diamond !—that is quite another affair. It was detained by the Government of New South Wales, because of some claims made upon it. Forthwith the irrepressible Butters spies a chance. Here is a mystery on which bets can be made—a grand open for a bubble company. So the irrepressible went to Sydney, and forthwith wonderful telegrams came down, as thick as leaves inautumn. The Rev. Mr Clarke (an expert in mineralogy), was to examine the stone ; a company was formed to raise LI,OOO to buy the gem on speculation, and, if it turned out to be a diamond, to pay L 4,000. In a few hours sbar. s were at L2O premium. This morning comes the news that the stone has been released, and that the astute one has sold his interest in it to the company. Nothing now stands in the way of a full examination being made and the proper tests applied, but some of the shareholders object and will not even allow the parcel to be opened though the bank (who hold it) desire that it be done in the presence of the finder and all interested so that the stone may be identified and the bank’s responsibility so far put an end to. Mr Clarke is not allowed a glimpse of the thing, and the mystery is kept up—evidently to give the chance for a little gambling in the shares. But all this is overdoing the thing and gives of itself strong reason to suspect that it is a humbug. The susp eion is confirmed by the description of the stone from which Mr Clarke opiuea that it is a white topaz.

In investigation is going on by a Select Committee of the Lower House into the proceed' ngs of members of Parliament in connection with the Lands Department. Great revelations are Expected from it, and it is to be hoped that the subjects of so many rumors that have been floating about for years past will be fairly unearthed at last. A most reprehensible practice has grown up by the Press here of eavesdropping about lobbies during the session of committees and boards of enquiry. The information thus obtained is always incomplete, never reliable, and more often than not is wholly trumped up by a mir'.h-loving witness for the fun of “ selling ” a reporter. lam informed on pretty good authority that the paragraphs in both the Dailies, relating to this Lands Committee and the Railway Board are in the main spurious, and are merely party dodges. The very aspect of them generally confirms the latter assertion. [The above letter, through some unaccountable delay, did not reach us until today.—Ed. E. S. ]