The Good Old Days.

Southern Cross, Volume 6, Issue 9, 4 June 1898, Page 3

The Good Old Days.

Victorian Memories.

(ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

An unfortunate firm—Eagles’ Bros, again—Fred and Bobby—Ballarat and the Charlie Napier—John Gibbs and Imperial 1 Tom—Withholding bad news—A ticket-selling expedition, and how it ended—A draper’s reminiscences—Tricks of trade —Imperial Tom and his ring.

(By Pioneer.)

The firm of H. W. Patton and C o met with nothing but misfortune after the bottom fell out of the New Caledonia scheme. The Queen of the Isles was wrecked on the Boulder Bank at Nelson, N.Z., in ’56. She had been insured in Khull’s office in Collins street for £2OOO for two years, but as the New Zealand coast was then considered very dangerous, and the insurance high in consequence, the vessel was insured only for £IOOO, as it was considered then to be her full value, >As luck would have it, she was lost on that trip, and there was no trouble about the insurance. The unfortunate Macclesfield came up the Yarra with only jury masts, and her bulwarks swept away. She was sold at auction for what she would fetch, and the big poop schooner Eleanora came to grief in the Fijis. What with other losses and bad debt Fred Eagles got sick of the whole business, and wound it up. Cole’s bonded warehouse stands now where the iron store and offices of H. W. Patton and Co. used to be, and the times are very much changed since fellows smoked cigars and drank Sauterne, etc, in Mincing Lane, Melbourne. Once more Fred Eagles mounted his horse, Bobby, and rode to Ballarat. His brother had done reasonably well, and on the strength of Fred’s Melbourne connections was induced to enter into partnership with him as whole sale storekeepers, and give up the retail business altogether. Harry was to manage it and Fred was to do the buying in Melbourne, and send up the goods. That being settled, Fred left Bakery Hill one morning at about five o’clock, and was at home in South Yarra at eight o’clock the same evening—a good 90 miles ride then, but there was no metal on the road, or he could not have done it without injury to the horse, good as he was. He afterwards sold the hack to Mr Yeend, the livery stable keeper, for £7o—a fancy price, but Yeend knew the horse could jump anything he could tonch with his nose, and he won several steeplechases with him. He was the father of Harry Yeend, who won the big race on Plying Buck, that was bred by Mr Hector Norman Simson, the squatter. The horse was a rank outsider at the time, and bolted with the boy, but happened to keep on the course, and won. Master Harry was carried to the Governor’s (Sir Henry Barkley) carriage by his enthusiastic admirers, and presented with a watch —there is a lot of luck in this world. Harry Yeend was afterwards the owner of racehorses in New Zealand —Rory O’More, King Phillip, and others, also of a line of coaches, in partnership with Tommy Pope, who made a bit of a hit in the North Island, on the New Plymouth road.

In ’57 Ballarat was in a highly prosperous state. Spending money was plentiful with a class of men willing to part with it freely. The Charlie Napier, in the main road, was doing a great business day and night —it comprised an hotel, theatre, dance room, American bowling alleys, and everything that could draw money from the pockets of the public, even to a roulette table in front of the bar, where the constant cry of the proprietor —‘ one down, who 11 make two ; two down who 11 make three ?’ met the ear of the passer-by in the street. John Gibbs was the owner of this big concern, and Tom Hetherington was his

manager —Imperial Tom. In ’45 he had made somehow about £IO,OOO and had made all his arrangements to go Home. One wet day when the streets were very muddy he was crossing Malop street, Geeloug, and saw a lady in extreme distress standing on theedgeofthe footpath,wondering how she should get across the rain-swollen gutter. Tom stepped forward, raised his hat, held out his hand and said ‘ Make a jump, madam—l’ll hold yon.’ The lady gave one look at him, started back, and exclaimed—- ‘ Imperial Tom !’ They had known each other in London. Tom did not go home, and pretty Mrs Hetherington played upon the stage of the Charlie Napier as soon as it was built, for by that time Tom’s £IO,OOO had vanished. He was a good manager, and did. not let trifles stand in his way. Madam Vitelli had an engagement, and when the mail was delivered one morning to Tom Hetherington there was a letter with a black border for Madam. ‘ John Gibbs said —* I suppose old Vitelli is dead at last p’ ‘ That’s just it,’ said Tom. ‘Now, if I give this letter to Madam, she can’t decently play to-night, and I shall be stuck, as I’ve no one to take her singing part. I’ll just keep the letter till after the performance and save her a day’s sorrow. She will have all night to indulge and no one the worse off.’

John Gibbs gave his manager fall carte blanche and the theatre paid. After the performance was over the dancing began. There were no seats in the pit—the audience stood and the bars extended all round. It was very convenient and suited the free and easy style of the period. There was a good deal of the pink silk element, and it was not an uncommon thing for young ladies to differ about things, and send bonnets, hair, and dress material generally, flying. When the little difference was settled they would go out to Heminingway and Jones', the drapers close by, repair damages, and return smiling in an entirely new rig out. Harry Eagles patronised the establishment generally, and one day at lunch John Gibbs said—--4 Come for a drive this afternoon ?’ 4 Where to and what for ?’ asked Harry. I am going round to sell tickets for the Licensed Vituallers’ dinner and ball. You can do business with the hotelkeepers at the same time, and we will drive as far as Creswick’s.’ ‘ All right.’ They got as far as the township on the hill in the buggy, and left the groom with the horses while they went round selling the two guinea tickets to whoever would buy them. The adjournments to hotels were part of the performance, and John Gibbs did all the shouting, as it was his day out, consequently the money for the tickets got spent as fast as they were sold. Harry Eagles took some orders from the hotelkeepers, and everything went on regular and proper according to Ballart custom. They got well on the road to Gres' wick, and put the horses along smartly, so they arrived by about five o’clock, and Gibbs said

‘ Got any money/ Eagles P Mine is all gone.’ ‘ Oh a few pounds,’ replied Harry. ‘ Hand over then, and charge me with the amount.’ The same sort of thing was re-

I plated at Creswick that had taken place, at Ballarat. Numbers of tickets were sold, the money spent, and about nine, o’clock at night they started to return completely cleaned out of money, besides a score they left, stuck up at the Star. The horses wanted to get home, and John Gibbs let them go, perfectly indifferent as to stumps, ruts, and holes. They were within a few huudred yards of a roadside pub, when the driver undertook to pass between two trees. The horses did, but the buggy did not. It remained a wreck on the ground, and the horses went home. When the two heroes of this exploit had picked themselves up, and discovered that they were only shaken a bit, they went on to the roadside pub, shouted for all there, and afterwards borrowed the landlord’s buggy as well as a five pound note to take them into Ballarat.

Next morning John Gibbs remarked that someone else could have the privilege of selling Licensed Victuallers’ tickets—be gave the thing best. The female population was almost as gaudy in ’57 as in Melbourne four or five years earlier, when lucky diggers came to town burning to circulate the then easily obtained gold, or rather the money it was sold for. Both men and women who had never been accustomed to much money in their former lives did not care what price they paid for anything they wanted, and judged the value of everything by what they were charged for it. The drapers’ assistants victimised the mauvais riches most unmercifully, and a business man in the main road told a story of ’53 when he was the head salesman at Williamson’s in Collins street, that was afterwards known as Alston and Brown’s—the principal upper ten glove-hunting establishment in Melbourne. He said—‘l had £ls a week salary, besides premiums upon the sale of old stock and out-of-date goods of all kinds in oar trade. Amongst other things there were a lot of old brocade silk dress pieces that would have been quite the thing in Queen Anne’s time, for they were flower gardens—all red peonies, blue lilies, sunflowers, roses and what not. They were gorgeous. Well, the boss said that if I could sell them they would be well got rid of at 30s a dress. I said I’d try, but. forgot all about them in the rush of business. One day two women walked into the shop dressed in alarming bonnets, China crepe shawls and common print gowns. They wore no gloves, because they would have hidden the big gold rings displayed upon their stumpy red fingers. They had great gold chains lound their necks and gold watches on view, while the whole story of the goldfields was told m two immense gold brooches — windlass, rope, bucket, pick and shovel, all were there. ‘ Here come two victims,’ I thought as I steppe'd forward, intending to engineer tho job of serving them myself.’ ‘ We want some silk dresses,’ said one. ‘ Good uns —we ain’t partickler to price,’ said the other. ‘ 1 showed them some and named a sufficiently high price, but they didn’t suit. I saw what was thq matter — they were too quiet, the proper thing fit for ladies. All of a sudden the old brocades occurred to me, so I put on my very serious look and said — ‘ If you don’t object to the price, I can show you two sample dresses which have lately arrived from Home. They are the latest style in Paris, but the price is very high. . ‘ Oh nevermind that, we don’t care —let’s see ’em.’

‘ I went away and got two of the grandest pieces, and when I unfolded them on the counter I saw that the deed was done. Their eyes glistened at the sight of the blaze of colour, and they said with one accord—- ‘ We’ll have ’em —how much ?’ ‘ Then I was stuck for a moment

bat only a moment. I then found it as easy to tarn shilling’s into pounds as they did to turn pounds into shillings, so I said — ‘ £3O, the dress piece.’ ‘They paid without a murmur, and a few days afterwards some woman of the same class came toenquire about ’ them silk dresses with the flowers on ’em.’ I told them that we expected them to arrive in about a fortnight if they could wait. They could and would, and so could others they knew. The time slipped by, the dresses arrived, and I sold the whole of those silk brocades for £3O a dress, and pocketed half the amount for premiums.’ ‘Do you consider that honest,’ asked someone.

‘ Perfectly,’ replied the ex-draper ‘ The women were satisfied and what more would you have ? If I had asked them 30s instead of £3O they would have turned up their noses at them ; besides, the material was very rich silk, and if we had gone to the trouble of having it died black, which we were not likely to do, then they would be nearly worth the money. Drapers have to study their customers more than in any other class of trade. It would have been an insult to have offered a lady those dresses in the way I did those diggers’ wives. ‘ I’ve often thought,’ remarked Harry Eagles, ‘ that serving in a draper’s shop was an unmanly sort of thing, and that it ought to be done by women.’ ‘ Never do. It would be a rank failure,’ said the experienced draper. ‘ Do you suppose that a good-looking girl would be satisfied to sell to another good-looking girl a bonnet that she bad herself set her heart on. She would keep it out of sight till she could manage to buy it for herself. And women won’t take trouble with women, and would make uncomplimentary remarks when customers had the counter piled up with things they never intended to buy, and after wasting an hour’s time, buy a halfcrown trifle and walk away.’ ‘I am convinced,' said Harry. ‘ I see it all.’ The main road, Ballarat, was, in ’57, one of the busiest thoroughfares in the Colony in the day time, and at night the centre of the attraction was the Charlie Napier. John Gibbs was supposed to be making a big fortune but somehow he didn’t, and Tom Hetherington came out of it far from gay. At the rush to Otago he came over with one of the crowds and had only 3s 6d when he landedin Dunedin.

‘ Let me see,’ said Tom when he told about it. ‘ Oh, yes, I remember. I knew that Joe Harding had the Union, so I said to myself : I’ll go there till I can look round. I have just the necessary capital for a start. Hdlf-a-crown to give some one to carry my carpet bag, and a shilling to ask Joe to have a drink. I met Jack Bidsey of the British in Geelong formerly, who then had the British in Christchurch, and was round in Dunedin looking for servants. So I went up with him and took charge of the hotel till he died.’ Tom had an hotel at the Bakaia before the railway, and afterwards at Leithfield. He was landlord of the Shamrock in Dunedin up to the time of his death. He used to wear a diamond ring that cost £2OO. ‘ It is an expensive thing to wear/ said Tom. ‘ Say money is worth ten per cent only to a business man, it costs me £2O a year to wear that ring. It may be bad taste, but I can afford to wear it, as I have neither chick nor child to support, and no poor relations to sponge upon me. I have a natural detestation for poor relations and my people at Home used to breed them by the dozens. I used to be laid under contribution by them when I was young and innocent—that,’ said Tom, after a pause, ‘ was a long, long time ago.’ Poor Tom !he was a generoushearted fellow to an old hard-up acquaintance, and when he died he left something behind him, but what became of the money, or who got that diamond ring no one seemed to know