MELBOURNE NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8155, 12 April 1888, Page 4

MELBOURNE NOTES.

Railway Management. — Exteaordinary Laxity.—FloatingCompanies.— Low Bate of Ihtekest to Investoes.—Alves' Aebial Tkamway.— A Big Bheweuy Ventube.

From a private letter written by an oid Dunedin resident from Melbourne last week we make the following extracts: —" Yesterday being Easter Monday, I went by train with some friends to the militia encampment 28 miles away, and like the majority of holiday excursions it; was not a, success as far as enjoyment was concerned. We were taken down in carriages, but brought back in cattle trucks, and we had to wait three hours before we could get into one of them even. The same thing occurred in connection with the Williamstown races, only six miles from Melbourne. The complaints are very loud about the railway management. No doubt the traffic on the occasions I have mentioned was immense, but they had no 'business to take people's fares for first-class carriages and then have nothing but sheep and cattle trucks to bring them home in. There is a great deal in connection with the railway management that is rather astonishing. For instance, the public are supposed not to be able to get on a platform without a ticket, that article being purchased just outside. When the train gets to its destination, a porter is supposed to be at the gate to take the tickets of the passengers who are leaving. To show how little attention is paid to this very necessary check on the traffic, I may mention that when I first came here I went by train for three weeks to a certain station, and no one ever asked whether I had a ticket or not. At the present time also my occupation takes me regularly out of town by train, and no one lias ever requested me to produce my ticket before going on the platform. Although I have travelled by train daily fully half the time I havo boon here, I have never seen anyone asked to show a ticket in a carriage, the consequence being that numbers travel first-class on second-class tickets. About a fortnight since, however—the first time I have heard of it being done since I have been in Melbourne—the authorities sent some sorters to go through the trains at the North Melbourne station,«which stands in (ho same relation to Melbourne as Pelichet Bay does to Dunedin. They found that there were 140 travelling illegally, and no less than •10 without any ticket at all, and this on by no means one of the busiest out stations. . . .

I do not see any signs of depression here yet, and do not think there is much danger of it until the exhibition is over. There can be little doubt, however, that it will come, Judging from the way companies are being floated every day, money must be still very plentiful; but the rate of interest investors are apparently satisfied with is rather surprising. There was an article a few weeks since in the Age which stated that at the present price of the tramway company's shares investors only got 1-J per cent., and this with the fact staring them in the face that all the best paying linos have been running some time. Those in course of construction have the railways to compete with. To n, place where I frequently travel, three miles away, the fare per rail is 3d for a return ticket. Among the new companies I see Alves' aerial tramway company, with a capital of £100,000. Alves informed a friend of mine that he had made £3000 during the past three months. No doubt you would see that M'Oracken's breweiy had been sold for £800,000. It is now on the market as a company with a capital of £2,000,000— nearly £2 per head for every man, woman, and child in the colony 1"