A DUNEDINITE IN VICTORIA.

Evening Star, Issue 3077, 30 December 1872, Page 2

A DUNEDINITE IN VICTORIA.

Emerald Hill is as big as Dunedin, Collingwood is quite a huge place, and North Melbourne and Carlton are growing young giants. An excellent speculation is it to buy land and bouses, or to build tbe latter in a Melbourne suburb, A new suburb, North Fitzroy, is also being added to the number, San Francisco is all compact, but Melbourne must be considered always in reference to tiie suburbs. I must not forget Richmond, a very pretty place. Pcahran too is very considerable, and so is St Kilda. But really re suburbs I must pause. hey would require a volume to do them justice. Superior board and lodging can be bad for 255, and very superior for 80s. I was offered the “ run” of a perfect mansion opposite the Treasury Gardens for —f think—Bss per week. 1 must tell you a true story. I put in au eccentric advertisement in tn e Argus, the queerness of which you may guess when I got one reply as follows :— '* Advertiser can get spacious apartments in any of the public gardens ; cheap diet, as per payment, at any restaurant, and an educated family at any of the public schools !” As a test, I advertised for a clerk, whom I did not want, and got 150 replies. But perhaps (mark the perhaps), if every circumstance were considered, this number were not extreme. One replicant hoped his being lame would be no barrier to his advancement as a clerk. Others beseeched me to take them for board alone. Some replies were truly piteous. As a whole, it may be said that everything is ovex-done here, ergo, Otago is far better than Victoria. Even miserable billets have floods of applicants. It is very little to the purpose that some of these applicants are incompetent. They spoil the market. Such a glut does not exist in Otago. I say therefore to the fairly successful Otagomaii “don’t come here to reside.” Rise with Otago. Grow with her growth and strengthen with her strength. I will not leave this matter to theory myself ; I will return to Otago. Its fine climate, its morally as well as physically healthy people, their solid Scotch attributes, all make your provitice a splendid contrast to effeminate, sensual Victoria, which is materially prosperous for a few, but morally a pest house for all.

The Mint, General Post Office. Treasury, Public library, are all very Hue public buildings, but nearly all spoiled, either in themseUes or by reason of a bad site. The site of the General Fust Office is ridiculously confined. When leaving it you clash immediately into the throng of Bourke street. Surely it would have been easy to purchase sufficient land to make a larger space available around. The Mint is in what is at present a rather obscure place ; but that is not a great fault; for what is obscure in 1872, may be public enough in 1882. Not much fault can be found with the Treasury. It certainly to an uu-architectural eye looks well. The back of the Parliament House is used as the front. Persons who are richer here than they were ever in their wildest dreams at home have a hatred of having a merely ornamental front which they seldom use. It is like the ornamental family Bible, covered, occasionally seen, seldom touched; and the back of the Parliament House, which is thus used as the front, is a most disgraceful back, and will probably long remain a disgraceful back. The private residences are very pretty. Terraces are the order of the day, but their numbering is puzzling. For example, one suburban street will have about a dozen terraces. The streets will have numbers of its own, and the terraces will have their own arithmetic likewise ; and as for the dense ignorance of the residents—of even constables- of simple facts lying daily under their own eyes, I have scarcely patience to write with moderation. The Victorians a smart people ! —Heaven save the mark. They may be quick in making the slowest horse, but the largest bribes win a “ cup” ; and in the honest sense, a more ignorant of beings it has never been my lot to Uvfi with;. The Victorians have little op no manners, in the genuine sense of the word, Obvious self-interest guides all they do, They hate to give the slightest salutation to any one from whom they expect nothing. To guide a blind man across a street, to support a fainting woman, to prevent cruelty to the lower animals—these are things they will not do, because they are not well paid for them. Charity that vauuts itself, which is heralded in the newspapers and in subscription lists, a certain class will perform, but numbers will not even do this, or if they do, ijb it? vu the stipulation that their names do not appear because collectors always fasten on those who appear on tpe subscription lists. So far as statistical crime is concerned, I agree with the Argus, with my calumniation, that Melbourne may fairly compare with other places; but what a host of vice and crime there is that never gets into the papers. Take the Carmelite, so-called religious, community. They are not Catholics, you may well suppose. I say this, because there is a sect of GarnmUtie nuns. Well, these Melbourne nondescript Carmelites have bpen going on for years, but have been only recently found out, and now we have only a glimpse of them, but that glimpse is terrible. They pray, sing, dance, kiss, and embrace in a dark room, while in a state of complete nakedness. Women constitute a large part of the sect, and it is said that one woman tyab xec,en ( tly poisoned, aud then was forced to will all hcr'lncotne of > 5009 to the community. I believe the whole affair will s,qos adorn the law courts.

The '• itzroy and Treasury Gardens are truly delightful promenades, and are largely patronised. The Carlton, which are “cared” by the Corporation, are a disgrace to the city. The Botanic are also failures as examples of landscape gardening. Dr Schoraburg, of Adelaide, when here, was offered employment as head landscape gardener of the Botanic ; but though he would thereby get a far higher salary than that he enjoys at he declined, and he was serenaded "by his Uermdn ’■countrymen and applauded pn his return tq Adelaide.' 1 He pqld the Adelaidjans that he went to Victoria to get new plants at an expense of LSO, but as he could not get one-tenth of what he had in his own garden already, he had to bring back the greater part of the LSO, together with a very poor opinion of Victoria landscape gardening. The chronic feud between Baron Mueller, the curator of the Botanic, and Mr Ferguson, landscape gardener, therefore still continues, but I believe the Baron had better be quiet, or he will be dismissed. Indeed, he would have been finally suppressed long agq if the A rgus had not shown a disposition to hunt him cfowip If you'wapt tq keep any Melbourne man in a billot who has genius in him, although allied tq faults, just let loose the dogs of the Argus office on him. To be hated by thecas, is to be loved by all men, We have some great little men. One of them is Marcus Clarke, the writer of the “Peripatetic Philosophy” in the Australian, and now the writer of “ Noah’s Ark” in that journal. He is the “young gentleman wuq was nearly poisoned,, because, a summer or two back, the perspiration of his innocent thighs mingled with the dye in his colored socks ! He is secre ary to the curator of the Public Library. When writing the “Perapat.-tic Philosophy,” he told ,us that ho mingled with, convicts, mendicants, loafers/ &e. Now ho tells us in the Warnum-

800 l Examiner of the Carmelite so-called re* ligious community, who dance naked in a dark room He (Marcus Clarke) is fossicker-in-general for the Colony of Victoria of all the moral and mental cesspools of the metropolis. Lately, in that journal, he indulged in most disgraceful abuse—quite personal and irreverent of the Jews, to which the editor of the Australian Israelite gave a stinging reply, in which he drew a picture of the “ Literary Bohemian’’ which was true to the life. Mr Pi. P. Whitworth is, 1 believe, the most talented of all the literary men who follow periodical literature in "V ictoria ; but he does not get on, because bis independent mind will not permit him to revel in the dirt bis of the press, or let him fawn for a guinea or two on venal press proprietors, which some of his quill brethren will undoubtedly do. If you are dead beat don’t come here, unless you have energies of mind and body far above the average. If you are prosperous, that fact is a reason for not coming here. Every avenue of employment is full to overflowing, and this fullness is the fullness of competency ; for however deficient the Victorians may be in manners and in morals, all that kind of information which tends to bring in a penny they are well supplied with. Again, preference is always given to an old Victorian. All the INew Zealanders T have seen here wish to got back. I came here myself on a special mission ; otherwise I would not be liere now. Your bracing climate, the solidity and absence of frivolity of your sterling Scotch colonists, the public spiritedness of your citizens, your fine line of coast; and, once for all, let me, at the risk of being nauseous, repeat, your magnificent climate ; all prove Otago to be, for rich or poor, foi men of mind or muscle, infinitely superior to feverish, impulsive, over-crowded Victoria. The Argus says my first letter will do no harm in New Zealand, because there are so many old Victorians there who know I told lies. But the Argus forgets that these old Victorians left Melbourne in 1852 an 1 1802, and the Melbourne of 1872 is vastly different to that of 1852 or 1862. ;■ ince 1852 and 1862 the criminal population, the extravagance, and yet the poverty has been immensely swelled. As to the recent mining mania, every one knows that was little better than an enormous swindle.

The Swedenbergians have a new building; the Spiritists are getting strong, but Mr Peebles was a great failure, fle is a Yankee, with a long beard and hair, and a vulgar nasal accent. Ere you get this, be will be with you. He is not “a patch” on Mr James Smith or Mr Charles Burgess, or Mr G. C. Leed, of the so-called Universalist (but Spiritist as well) sect at Gastlemaine. The orthodox preachers are getting afraid qf the unbelievers. But I believe that the pew sects will all split up into many schismatic creeds ere long. James Smith has already left the Spiritists, and now lectures on his own account. The Daily Telegraph is very hard on him. Of course ladies form a Urge portion pf the new sect. The through telegraph has largely ministered to the Victorian vanity. Just imagine receiving news from England daily ! What dp you think of that ? And what do you think of saying “ I’m pretty well,’ I thapk ye !” to Jolm Bull, and having tq pay LIQ for your politeness ? Eh !