OUR VICTORIAN LETTER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 365, 8 February 1879, Page 16

OUR VICTORIAN LETTER.

(FROU OUR OWN correspondent). Melbourne, January 29. With the exception of an occasional stumping expedition to districts wanting a railway, or suspected of defection from the liberal cause, public men have so far been remarkably quiet. The great medicine men are on the rolling deep, and by this time are probably "past Mozambic," inhaling the " Sabean odours from the spicy shores of Araby the blest." Anyhow, if not that, they have the smell of reeking machinery and the fragrant odours of boiling tar sent out by a tropical sun from rattlin and hawser. But nightly they pace the deck, and anxiously discuss the most ingenious plan for getting at that ingenuous statesman, Sir M. Hicks°Beach. Should the embassy fail, I see nothing for it but a gigantic Liberal Intercolonial Association, which shall contain your " Poor Man's" friend and bis party, and then a fresh embassy, consisting of delegates from all the colonies. We must and will see the "poor man" through. Hang all legislation till we achieve that. The squatters are having a lively time of it in this colony. Added to the shortness of their tenure, (all leases expire in 1880), there is the special land tax, the drought, almost universal, and in some districts the ruinous rabbit nuisance. I was shown over one station at Christmas, and the rabbits in some parts of it swarmed like ants on an ant hill. Upwards of a thousand a week were sent into the Melbourne market. In many places acres of hill side were as bare as a billiard ball, and the overseer informed me that the station carried ten thousand skeep less than it would if clear of the pest. A feeble attempt is being made by the Government to cope with the evil, but it is too much to expect anything like vigorous and systematic effort for such a sublunary object as the extermination of this pest, whilst the Constitution has to be amended. Let us reform the Upper House, and rabbits will disappear of themselves. It will interest some of your Wesleyan readers to learn that at the recent Conference held in Melbourne, the Rev. Spencer Williams was elected president for the ensuing year. Every one who has had an opportunity of hearing the lively rhetorical sermons of the rev. gentleman will at once agree that Conference has this time at least placed the right man in the right place. The were somewhat less lively than usual, but this has been attributed to the receipt of intelligence of the death of a prominent Wesleyan minister, the Rev. Mr. Eggleston; and to-day the papers announced the death of Mrs. Eggleston. It is said that the death of the husband produced so serious a shock to her nervous system that the already enfeebled lady never rallied.. Somebody, wishing to say that human nature has not altered appreciably within the time covered by written historical records, says that "History repeats itself." I remember being greatly amused with an episode in the novel known as Little Pedlington, where, on the news leaking out that the local bank was getting shaky, two respectable citizens went around and succeeded in persuading the bank's customers not to cause a run on the bank, and a few days would tide over the difficulty. Every client admitted the reasonableness of the advice and promised to keep away from the bank. The two friends walked home arm-in-arm, and arranged to call quietly at 10 next morning and " lift" their little " pot."

By a quarter to 10 the sensible Peddletonians blocked up the street, to the utter bewilderment of the astute two who called too late a,t 10. Like unto this was an event that I witnessed in a small inland town during the holidays. The Shire pound often holds a good horse which, from a poor attendance of buyers, sometimes goes for a mere song. Every butcher has an eye for a horse. It was observed by several of these catsmeat men that the pound held three nice little nags, and the sale was to come off on New Year's Day. Three of the butchers kept race horses, and had entered them for the Lai Lai races, and they gave out that they were sorry they couldn't attend the sale as they were bound to be at Lai Lai. The remaining three nonracing men also mentioned casually to two washerwomen and a barber, and a wet nurse or so, that they were determined to see the races this year at Lai Lai. The auctioneer foresaw a rare opportunity to buy in on his own account, but he had no sooner raised the hammer and asked the original question, " how much am I offered for him?" than all six butchers approached and commenced to bid against one another. I must explain that butchers are the only men who can afford to speculate in horseflesh now. Prime fat stock go for £5, but butchers get the same prices as last year when similar bullocks fetched £lO. They say its their " go in." We had hoped big things from the diamond drills imported at great expense from America to test the course of new leads in promising mining districts, but the commonest telegram in Victorian papers is " the diamond drill at has got out of repair, and Mr. Botch of Melbourne has been sent up to inspect the mechanism." The thing goes down like a wombat, while there is hard ground to cope with, but does not appear to be adapted to clear its way in soft country—the diamonds get loose and the thing won't work. It appears necessary to ensure success to import along with the drills a couple of Yankees to work them. It does look strange though that the premier colony, with a land tax carried, and an embassy on the waters, can't raise mechanical skill sufficient to superintend and " run" a machine in no way more complicated than our ordinary sewing machine. If you import one, import duplicates of every part, and if you have Kelly bushrangers it might not be amiss to import duplicate Yankees. As we have made no headway in catching the bushrangers, we are busy over the next best thing —we are catching and imprisoning everybody in the Mansfield district whom the police imagine capable or likely to furnish supplies to the outlaws. Local constables have now a rare opportunity to lock up all publicans who have been slow to pass out a hot " tot' to a man doing winter " patrowle" at mid night. Mind you, it's no slouch of a comfort after a man has been plashing up and down muddy unlighted streets for hours, with nothing passing the lips but "move on now" or a quiet whiff under the poncho, I say it is then no maugre regalement on passing a publican just locking up for the night to slip in and " have one" on the cheap. Cases are on record where such publicans have pretended not to see the drenched guardians of our clothes-lines and servant girls, and have left them to go on unregaled till morning. Time brings its revenges. I have never been able to decide the question whether it is the existence of forests that keeps up the annual rainfall, or whether it is the rainfall in a particular d'strict which keeps going the forests. I thought these were the alternate solutions of the problem about the effect on climate of forests. But there's a third. It depends on the man who keep 3 the rain guage. Last year the greatest rainfall was set down as occurring in a certain locality, but the residents in that neighborhood smile when strangers speak of the discomforts of living in such a damp district. It is said that a certain amateur meteorologist was overheard to soliloquise in January, 1878, after looking over the table of raiufalls for 1877, " I can lick anything there anyhow," and did by several inches.

Amongst the deaths recorded in the obituary list brought by the newspapers of the English mail, I notice'that of Mr. G. H. Lewis. If by this is meant Mr. G. H. Lewis, the husband of George Eliot, a man has passed away who has left few equals amongst modern writers. His Life of Goethe, History of Philosophy, Exposition of the system of Aristotle, bis admirable Analysis of Comte, and latterly his profound Problems of Life and Mind, all stamp him as one of the hardest headed men of this generation, and as well able to hold his own with such men as Spencer and Mill. He is known to people who never read standard works by his contributions to the leading English reviews. Anyone at all familiar with the process by which enlightenment spreads, knows that it is the man who teaches the teachers that carries weight in this world, and Lewis's writings are chiefly of value as exemplifying the methods by which truth is to be found, thus starting a hundred thinkers who are nearer to the average reader than a purely philosophical writer can hope to come.

The fencing of North Carolina is valued at 10,000,000d01, and the stock at 2,000,000d01. In other words, it takes sdol. worth of fencing to protect the crops against Idol, worth of stock. The Australian Eleven, after its victorious career in England, America, and the colonies, will soon break up. The team, says the Argus, would have dispersed after its latest, and in many respects its crowning triumph on the M.C.C. ground recently, but it has been invited to play at Sandhurst, and has consented to do so as a compliment to Mr. H. Boyle, one of the ablest and most popular members of the eleven. After this match the members of the team will return to their respective avocations, and as an eleven they will live only in cricketing and in social history. But they have earned a lasting fame, and they will carry with them the best wishes of all Australian colonists for their success in other spheres of life.