VICTORIAN EXTRACTS.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 37, 17 March 1863, Page 2

VICTORIAN EXTRACTS.

(From the Geelong Chronicle.') A Recollection. — When lodging fon men was seventy shillings a week, an! bedsteads were stowed away in one too: wooden cottage and the cottage built twenty foot frontage, there was great perity if not much comfort. The rigli way in a bedroom so tenanted by single for ingress, egress and regress, were ci: scribed. Luggage used to be stored in days, and after their advertisement s<> auction to make room for a fresh lot, se a new chum soon found himself dise: rasped of superfluous boxes, trunks, ( bag3, and other impedimenta to the p:osot of a free colonial career. Accepting his dition in a new community, the new < emancipated from old notions and prejn started fair with one suit. It will be ei to anybody that six lodgers bedded in s foot room would have been inconvenience surplus of luggage, and us seventy shil a-hcad per week was the current pric the occupancy of one of six stretchers, board, and as bulk occupies space, i; economical to saciifice or abandon b)xe«ra portmanteaus. I had lived in such a boar house, and had been reproved one di dinner for 1 e'ping myself too bountiful!; cauliflower which, I was informed cost shillings and sixpence. The landlady o: tress of the establishment intimated, th the figure such extravagance could m tolerated. I happened to know tha wanted to get married. She knew it to; did Claude Mclnottcj, the leading luani tragic business at the theatre ; so did light comedian from Islington, who p. lovers' part?, sung comicsongs, acted asi prcter to magic lanthorns, and with a ' wand pointed out the mysteries of the uni as evolved in the dumb sluw of an itinei orrery. This genius of the strefecher had a pupil of Birkbeck's and was a first-rat turer on the comic poets of England. 1 dition to these talents he used to- seratc head continually at breakfast time. Tt centricities of genius are unaccount There was another chap in the same ro an old wizerned face being, who used job painting in the morning, give leasj: elocution at mid-day, and who had a it rious commission for die sale of all so: merchandise, which be was always disp of without sample, or stock. I saw liiir. night doing a wonderful jms seulat the tlii in a ballet, called " Love and Passion,"! wondered how the old man could jump kick out his flexible limbs and play ii . T peasant so gaily, in total forgetfulnf seventy shillings a- week board and Iml Another tenant of that six b added rojii a contractor, who had more money tlis the other lodgers put together, and cleared out one morning without paying body, and soon after there vjjj^kp «J VC ment of sale of furnitum^tfi^oH» pfifes a preliminary announcement, with fo particu'ars promised — and I was bous because the landlady could not afford to away and board six single men at set shillings a-week, and meat at two-pei pound. The cottage could be got cr T i shillings a-week, payable in advance. 1 Puivate letters received by the last report the death, ou Christmas day, of | Brooke, the mother of the well-known s The deceased was eighty years of age,. was held in great veneration and affecti every member of her family. Mis-statement. — One cannot help re: ing upon the sang froid manner in »vhic Advertiser of yesterday conveys to the p of England the prosperous condition o: town of Geelong. Whatever may I* object of the writer, he is stating tvl> knows to be untrue ; — for, in spite of tfc Exhibition and its 13,000 visitors, or » good attendance at the late turf meeti" the balls or the pic-njes, the condition o people in the town of Geelong was never plorably impoverished — with upward* c ; buildings to let, with the extinction of * as many small tradesman who have ' changed their vocations or their loc* and the driving away from the town <f wards of 500 careers, who have sought t in New Zealand through the making of ' way on. a coast line, and with the exc! monopoly enjoyed by the foreign banksman mu3t be an audacious one who saji Geelong is in a state of prosperity, l) e certain people in it are found to spend i freely in anything that relates to their* gratifications,* eve.ii if they neglect f their way.

; (From the Geelong Advertiser^) ;j s Mr. Dt'Fi-y Honest.-^-Tlus is the text »( an article ou the land, question in yester-Ly-9 Economist. The conclusion arrived at ij a negative to the ■.question, and the drift of L article is the reverse of flattering to Mr. n u ffy' s coadjutors in the ministry. The ftononnst says — "The true solution of that Ms. Duffy's) course must be sought for in *e circumstances of the political parties at foe time -when he took office. The parties . Jrere contending for popularity ; both were pilling to practice corruption, and the highest jribe, it was supposed, -would secure the ijrize. Mr. Brooke had offered occupation [censes, and it was necessary for Mr Duffy m give a still more captivating bribe. There cannot be a doubt that the anxiety of Mr. ou3y> * n framing.hls Land Bill, was in lefere nce to the extent of the bribe to be given jndthat the interests of the country were altogether a secondary consideration. It is now only a just retribution that, the scheme c f our artful dodger has utterly failed, the nublic discover the. selfish and contemptible process by which they have been deluded and their interests betrayed, and that the quondain friends of the deceiver are now to call jjini to account." The two new lighthouses at Queen scliff ar e now in full working order; the old lights wee extinguished on the 19th inst, and active §asures are taken to dismantle them. A. nevr flagstaff is also in course of erection — the ! old one was a leading mark for the Corsair jocks, in line with the old lighthouse, and is not now required. The two lights are very trilliant, and can be seen at sea 20 miles off. Iliey are also a great benefit to Queenscliffas ■they light up the whole township as brightly ,sjf the streets were lit with gas. — Geelong Advertiser. . j. The Floods at NarKiga. — "Weunderstand •jHat the floods at Narriga have been so severe as to lead to the general suspension of fining operations in that locality. Messrs. J. U. Davis and party have returned to Braidwood, and report that the rain commenced there on Saturday. Where they were employed, below Timberlite, on the Shoalhaven river, the waters rose thirty-five feet, and carried away all their mining implements and tools. The. party lias not been successful; they were impeded by the heavy rains soon after getting into work in January, and that being succeeded by another flood, destroys all hope of a profitable yield, especially as a vast amount of labor is required to remove the masses of stone which. overlay the pockets where the gold is generally found.— Braidwood Observer.