AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 904, 27 March 1869, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN NOTES.

(Melbourne Daily Telegraph.)

The "greatest plague" in life is more troublesome just now in Melbourne than ever. Domestic servants never could be otained for love, and it is becoming difficult to get them for money. _ Materfamilias has no peace herself, in consequence of the independence— for which we confess to a sneaking admiration — and the incompetency— which we don't admire — of Biddy, and she allows Paterfamilias none. Grumbling is the rule night and day, in thousands of households seeking "domestic treasures," and finding noue. We do not write to analyse this social phenomenon, but to warn the sufferers that there i 3 no present prospect of release from their troubles. The "new chum" help is not looked upon with altogether favourable eyes, and yet so great was the rush for the 59 late arrivals per the Corona that they were all hired yesterday within an hour, at wages highly satisfactory to the recipients. The cry in this case is that they do not cotne.

More massacres in New Zealand, more paltry fighting and more disasters. The character of the New Zealand warfare is fast becoming dangerous to the prestige of the British race in this part of the world. We confess it is to us almost an unintelligible phenomenon. None seem to know what to do with these Maoris, or to be willing to do it, if they do know. Volunteers or armed constabulary go from one part of' the country to another, leaving their own homes exposed the while. Warnings are sent to outlying settlers here and there, and some of them " come in " in fche course of the night. Others do not. and then, after a bit, one hears of another nice little massacre of six or seven, including, perhaps, women and children. As to what the Central Government is doing, or can do, there is nobody who can tell. The disease is getting chronic, and even here in Victoria we are becoming blunted in our sensibilities, and hear from time to time of these horrid murders as if they were matters of course. While we respect the Maori, acknowledge his virtue, admire his courage, and even admit the poetic justice ot his cause, we must confess to a belief that wiih the tribes it is the fashion to call "rebels" the time for half measures has gone by. The friendly and civilised Maori of the missionaries is an admirable • eing. The Bishop of Lichfield, who Christianised them, will find the brutalized and ignorant population of the " black country," the Staffordshire iron workings, a far more stony field in which to sow the seed of the Evangelist. And he will not hesitate to draw the comparison, and to preach'' it. The rebel Maori, however, is not the Bishop's pet. War, which rouses every evil passion in man, which makes the Anglo-Saxon a tiger, renders the Maori in too many cases a ferocious savage. The o ily chance of saving a noble race is to suppress the murderers who are now in arms. If that cannot be done, the alternative is that they will suppress us.

The grave has just closed over the last male aboriginal of Tasmania ! In the j'ear 1816 the aboriginals of Tasmania were supposed to be about 7000 in number, certain well-informed persona placing them considerably under that figure ; and now they exist no more. « There is, we under 1 stand, one old woman left, called Lalla Rookh, the last of her race ; but all the men are dead. Callous as we are in these days of telegraphs and iron-clads, it is impossible to repress a sigh of pity over the dust of poor Billy Lanne, or as he was sometimes called, King Billy. He was a whaler, and a " jolly fellow," and had been to England, and was presented to the Duke of Edinburgh when the latter was last year in Tasmania. He went to sea again in March, 1868, got very fat on the voyage, returned a few weeks ago, took to drinking heavily of beer and rum, and died of English cholera in a d.iy or two. In the course of a few years the natives of Victoria will also have become extinct. The result is simply that of a law of nature. The Maoris are going too. They know it themselves. Missionaries, settlers, and soldiers are powerless to save and civilise these moribund races. There seems no exception to the awful and mysterious law that bids the man of colour perish, when the white man treads upon his soil. When that happens, the hour has come, and the man. Viewing the matter philosophically, is is all "a struggle for existence," as both Mr Darwin and Mr Higinbotham say, and the best men must win. In the interests of science, however, as well as of humanity, it would be well if all the knowledge possible to be got of the nature, physical and mental, of the Australian aboriginals who are still left could be collected and systematised. The anthropologists would be very grateful for such information, and the European and American philosophers and news-

papers do not ignore the fact that there is such a science as anthropology. " On the Great Pacific Railway," states the telegram, "■ trams are now running 500 miles east of San Francisco." There is no work of modern times in which the Australian colonies ought to feel a deeper interest than this great railway, which will unite the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards. With San Francisco joined to | New York by the track of the iron horse, and with the mightiest of modern "racers of the deep" running daily between America and Europe, there is a new passenger and postal route opened for ourselves — a route to the old world taking in the new. The construction of the railway ia in the hands of two companies, one working from the east and the other from the west. Both companies are pushing on with a vigour which seems to be unknown out of the Statps. For one thing both are urged on by local pressure. The vast and growing trade of the inland " territories" of Utah, rich in corn and wine, and of Idaho and Montana, storehouses for minerals, is the prize for which Chicago on the one side, and San Francisco on the obher, are striving. The distance between the advancing lines grows less and less. Within; twelve months the band of iron which will girdle a continent, and -which will make San Francisco the mistress of the Orient, will be completed. Hers is a great destiny. But Melbourne, the mistress of the South, need entertain no mean jealousy. To descend from the clouds, it seems sure that the next Eastern mail service — and New Zealand will never abandon the idea — will be via the grea r Californian entrepot, and not by way of the pestilential marshes of the Isthmus.

We hear complaints of our colonial wine shops and our colonial wines. The former are said to be clingy, unattractivelooking places, while of the latter people say it is neither good enough nor plentiful enough in quantity for the price charged for it. The winesellera will probably reply that, as for the article of wine, they give as much of it and as good as can be sold for 4d, while for 6d you can have a glass of very decent Hermitage, and in both cases, if you ask for it, a biscuit in ; for the shops, they tell you that so long as rents are high and the demand for their wines so moderate as at present, they cannot afford o paint, paper, ornament, and light them better than they do. It appears to us both parties are partly right and partly wrong. The colonial wine- drinker, unless he possess a palate frew from all fastidiousness, may justly complain that his favourite beverage is not fairly placed on the market, and that, instead of getting it pure, it is in nine cases out of ten "got up" and abominably doctored, and frequently out of condition, while the wine-seller does certainly not drive a trade which would warrant him in converting his small room or rooms into a wine " palace." We fear it must be admitted that the chief support of the wine- seller is at present to be found among foreigners — French, German, Italian, and Swiss, rather than among Englishmen. Yet the numbers of the latter who drink wine are decidedly on the increase, and we are convinced would increase rapidly if the wine were really sound and good. Too often it is abominable, and the winesellers will never succeed in inducing an Englishman to prefer a glass of inferior wine to a glass of sound ale or porter. Reformation must begin with the wine, and what is wanted is not Adelaide wine or Murray wine, both of which are strong sweet liquors ; but good pure Bendigo or other Victorian produce. We know that there has been for some time a great demand for genuine Victorian wine, and when it can be made in sufficient quantity the winesellers will probably be able to hold out the two attractions for increased custom, the want of which is alluded to above as the present ground of complaint against them.