THE DARK SIDE OF MELBOURNE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2528, 22 September 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE DARK SIDE OF MELBOURNE.

UsDKii Urn title of " A Fortnight in Mulboui'iu! " a correspondent oF the Otago Daily Times his been supplying that journal with a series of exceedingly interesting letters from which we have already made 'Otiie extracts. The following refers to the dark side of Melbourne:

And now I fancy I hear some of the readers of these articles ask, "Butis it all brightness and sunshine in this Marvellous Melbourne?" To which very natural question I must answer, No. Molbonrue has, indeed, its dark side; and yet it is not the dark side of penury and want—that saddest of all spectacles, which in the great cities of the world make the heart bleed and the spectator pray for an amelioration in the condition of the homeless poor—"where," as George Elliot puts it, "The hum-in faces have no sunshine in them, but rather the leaden blank-eyed gaze of unexpectant want." This is not to be seen in Melbourne. Ido not mean to say that there are no poor, for such there inevitably will be in all large cities. Melbourne has, no doubt, its full share of the worn-out dregs of humanity of both sexes whose misfortunes or faults have made them in their old age seek an asylum where their weary bodies have rest and their broken spirits receive such rays of comfort as can be given to them. And in addition to the unfortnnates who have to seek admission to the various charitable institutions, there is another form of human misery which is not seen in New Zealand towns—the blind and maimed who solicit charity in almost every street. To the eye unaccustomed to such sights, the condition of many of these poor creatures seems most deplorable. Poverty and miaery_ of this description however—and as it may be—is not to be compared to the heart-broken misery of the working man, with wife and family dependent on him who cannot obtain the labour for which he seeks, and which would turn his weariness into gladness, and bring sunshine into hie saddened home. Of this class of poverty there is in Melbourne none. Building goes on apace, as I have previously said, and while this continues the cry of the unemployed will not be heard. _ How long this will continue it is impossible to say with any certainty ; but I venture the opinion that until next winter sets in. tolerably full employment is almost certain for mechanics and labourers of all classes who are now in Melbourne. Building cannot of course go on very long at the present rate—everybody admits that. The check must pome, and when it does, there will be serious trouble. But of the dark side of Melbourne life of which I promised to tell, I will now endeavour to fulfil my promise, but in us few words as possible, for the subject is a sad one. In company with a Dunedin resident—to whom let me here express my appreciation of his pleasant and instructive companionship during many sisrht-seeina hours—l decided in view of the possibility of writine these sketches, to visit, the scenes of darkness and vice for which a certain quarter of the city is notorious. Ar a necessary preliminary we paid a visit to one of the inspectors of poliop, and. haviner briefly stated the purport of onr mission—that we were visitor* to Melbourne, and having witnessed the >>riehtnPS' nnd prosperity of its r-.ity life, we now wished to see its dark side—he at onco agreed to plane at onr disposal two plain clothes members of his staff, under whose prnidance we miorht safply tread the dark lanes and alleys of thn Chinese quarter, and explore the squalid dens which f>o r , many European prirls enter never again to recover nven that modimm of self-respect which their miserable lives had left thorn.

By appoin'ment we met our snides, shortly after 11 o'clock—rather too late an hour to begin nnr perambulations, but we had been to the Princess Theatre to witness the performance of " Monte Christo, Junior." by Nellis Farren and the London Gaiety Company, and the performance was not over untill after 11 o'clock. At about midnight we entered the first lane off Little Bonrke street, after first inspecting sundry Chinese gambling houses and cook-shops in th.it well-known locality, where our guides seemed quite well-known to the occupants. In these establishments there is usually a brisk business done, but we were apparently too late, as the gamblers had ceased their noisy operations for the night, ann the consumers of Chinese soups and mfisses had vanished from the scene. The first lane having been well entered, one of the detectives opened the door of a small unwholesome-looking tenement, and invited us to follow up a narrow passage with small rooms on each side, and we soon came to the end of the miildiug. Each of the rooms at the end of the passage way was occupied by two girls with plates of Chinese soup before them. They were well-dressed, and in no way abashed at their position. The detectives were evidently well-known to them, as they entered into conversation about a number of girls who liar! bfien np before tho conrt that day, nnd dismissed thfi fines which had been inflicted. With a parting , good night by the detectives, we again passed into the lane and struck up ft blind alley which branched off it. with Chinese riens closely packed On pithpr Ride. With a prnliminarv remark in Chinese from one of our qrnidps. answered from within, wn entered one of Hie houses, which was full of cirls and Chinamen, Rutin? and smokinsr. This wan only a type of numerous similar dpns which we vHted—partly cook-shops, but all of them with rooms for immor.il purposes hired to the larrikins nnd girls who came and went continually. We wore orlad to o=capefrom the smoky atmosphere of thfi miserable nlacp, nnd again pnterins? thfi nllpy we made our way into the lani\ and thence into Little Bourke-otroet, meeting on the way number* of girls— Rome of them alone, noma of them with young fellows—makinsr their way to tho houses we had "nitted. Grossins the street, we entered lanes nnd alloys betwepn it and Bourke-street similar to those we bid previously gone throusrh on tho other side. Owins to the lateness of the hour, it hpinor now abmit 1 o'clock, the majority of the houses were in darknpss. Tn pome, however, which we entered the scenes alrendy described repeated thninpelves—srirls, Chinamen and larrikins everywhere—such terrible degradation us it had never been my lotto witness before. Discerning , a lierht in a small house et thp end of a blind alley, wo groped our way in the darkness through a gateway and until the door was reached, at the risk of breaking our Ipsts through obstructions and inequalities in the around. The usual Chinesfi exclamation from the detective, a preliminary tap, and he opened the door. We all entered and found several Chinamen busy smoking and chattinff. Although the hovisp, seemed little better than a one storeyed place, a narrow and rickety stairway indicated that there was accomodation of some sort above. Up this we made our way with some difficulty, and a very sid and pitiable scene disclosed itself. Lying on a wide bed was a pale-faced, rather good-looking girl of about 16 years old. As we entered the room she was engaged filling a pipe with opium, and this completed, she handed it to an old and repul»ive-Wlcine Chinaman, who lay at the other side of the bed with the opium lamp between them. He lisrhterl the pipe, and with a few strong draws exhausted its contents, filling the room with the powerful odour. The srirl then proceeded to fill the pipe for herself, and to questions which I put to her she said that sho smoked a srood deal of opium, sometimes 3« or 3s 6d worth a day—that she paid the Chinese landlord 5» per wepk for the attin in which she lived ; that she had not bpe away from the miserable den more than twice in the past two months, and that she scarcely ate anything , —probably due to the quantity of opium she smoked.

Here, indeed, was a sad and wasted life. No lieht, no sunshine—bereft of all interest in the present, all hope for the future— driftingr sadly ajirt drnarily onward until the appoints time shall come wbteu' folf her, earthly shall

cease. And hers is but a type of many similar lives whose destinies are being wrought out in the Chinese qunrtor of Melbourne. Many of these girls of course do not so utterly abandon themselves to their fate aH to coase to take all interest in their daily life. Indoed our guides through the scenes of degradation which I have attempted to pourtray informed us that only too often girls nettle down to life with tho Chinee of Little Bourke street and its off-shoot lanes as an existence of indolence and ease from which they apparently have no wish to be relieved. They are allowed by their Mongolian protectors to do as they please, aro relieved from all work, are well clothed and fed, and seem quite satisfied with their lot. Whether they aro ao or not, it is a standing disgrace to Melbourne that there should be within a stone's thrown of one of its principal business streets an extensive area where vice of the most appalling kind is allowed to run riot. The closaly-packed rookeries where all this viciousness is congregated, the evil-smelling lanes and alleys, where thieves, larrikins, and their miserable female companions resort, are not only a disgrace, but a menace to the city, for who can tell how many respectable lada have been here enticed into associations which have altered their whole nature, and brought trouble and Borrow into homes which otherwiso might have known them not. It ie true, I believe, that a good deal has been done toward the improvement of Little Bourko-street, and there is evidence of this in certain new building*, which have taken tho place of old tumble-down shanties that formerly existed, but the plague-spot of the city is not yet touched. It is a blot on the escutcheon of this magnificent and prosporous city, which should be promptly effaced.