A LADY'S LETTER FROM MELBOURNE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 6, 1 June 1883, Page 13

A LADY'S LETTER FROM MELBOURNE.

Bincb I last wrote, Sir John O'Shanassy, who from the earliest days of this colony was a conspicuous legislator, and an unflinching advocate for Catholic rights, has gone to bis rest. He died the death of the just, surrounded by his children and grandchildren, and truly mourned by his fellow-countrymen, who (even when they could not agree with his politics or prejudices, as no doubt it sometimes happened) were always able to take a just pride in his rare gifts of character and intellect. His death took place on Saturday, the oth of May, and many and fervent were the prayers offered up next morning for the eternal repose of his soul, — not only in the churches of Victoria, but in those of the other colonies to which the sad news had been telegraphed. There is at present a fierce war waging in Melbourne, between the strict Sabbatarians and the more liberal public, as to the desirability or undesirability of opening the Public Library and Picture Gallery on Sundays. At tbe beginning of the contest the case was stated fairly enough on both sides, the Sabbatarians pointing out the unfairness of compelling librarians and attendants, whose consciences disapproved of such a method of spending Sunday, to do work which they considered sinful, while the advocates of a less severe Sabbath held that it was monstrous to close those valuable means of education to the working people on the only day on which they had leisure to profit of them. Since then, there have been public meetings, memorials, leading articles, and countless letters, on both sides, and a good deal of nonsense has been talked, especially by the " unco quid," who profess to see in this first step in the wrong direction the thin edge of the wedge which is to destroy Christianity in Australia ; while the anti-Sabbatarians appear to believe that once the Library is opened on Sunday, it will be thronged by swarms of idle youths, who at present Bpend the Sunday at street comets smoking and jeering at the passers-by, but who, once the Library ia available, will immediately see the error of their ways, and promptly become students and lovers of art. So far, the friends of popular education have bad their way, for the trustees of the Library have decided on opening it, and the experiment has been most successful since it has -^been in operation (thal*is to say, for the last two Sundays), but when Parliament meets there are to be petitions for and against opening the Public Library and Art Galleries. These petitions are gigantic in size, most people having signed one or other, and some half-hearted individuals without fixed principles having compounded with their consciences by affixing their signatures to both. Reverence for their elders is not supposed to be an especial attribute of young Australians, but that it sometimes exists is beyond doubt. A small boy of my acquaintance, whose elder brother is a distinguished athlete, was asked by a friend, at what hour he would

be likely to be home. " Oh, he will not be home till late this evening ; on Thursdays he always goes to Mr. Nasium." < " Who is Mr. Nasium, and what does he go to him for ?" asked the friend. "He is Mr. James Nasium, and Frank, who goes to see him very often, and likes him very much, calls him Jim. He has got all kinds of ropes and poles, and Frank says it is capital fun going to Jim Nasium, much better than football or cricket." It is necessary, I believe, to go through some costly and tedious law proceedings if a man wishes to change the ill-sounding surname he was born to, to something more euphonious, but no such difficulty stands in the way of Christian names. When a young man arrives at the dignity of visiting cards he may discard the Tom or Jaok of his school days, and call himself Mr. T. Clarence Foster, or J. Marmaduke Wilson, if he chooses. I discovered this fact the other day when a bride called on me, and talked of her husband as Algernon, although I had know him from his knickerbocker days as Joe. I was too much taken by surprise to ask for any explanation of the change, and will have some difficulty in accustoming myself to his new name, which I found inscribed on his card Mr. J. Algernon Blank. I suppose with you, even more than with us, winter has been making himself felt, and that all the girls have donned fur capes, and all the matrons, whose husbands are not absolute monsters, have wrapped themselves in sealskin. A few years ago a sealskin mantle was a distinction, marking the happy possessor, as a person of means and consequence, but they threaten this year to be almost as plentiful as pianos and whereas they used to be all valuable and real, they now vary, like pianos, from the price of an Erard's Grand to the small sum for which yon can procure a second-hand Collard and Collard. I saw the other day a pretty exhibition of china painting, by the pupils of a French lady, whose class has only been established about eighteen months. In that short time wonderf al things have been achieved, and as I examined the really artistic work, and saw the exquisite taste and marvellous dexterity that had been brought into play in this fascinating pastime, I could not help thinking how much eyesight and time our poor grandmothers wasted over ugly, uninteresting wool-work pictures, which were copied with the nicest exactitude from patterns, and left nothing to the fancy of the workwoman, while we are taught with far less trouble to produce so much more satisfactory a result. Little boys, and still more little girls, are so dreadfully oldfasbi oned and wise no w-a-days that the enfant terriblehaa almost ceased to exist. Yet there are specimens to be met with occasionally, with whom it is scarcely safe tojventure into general society. A little girl, who had just been made supremely happy by the purchase of a winter hat, at our most fashionable milliner's, was waiting in tbe shop while some slight alteration was made to render the new hat still more beautiful. Her attention was attracted to a very fantastically' dressed old lady, who was busy choosing a bonnet, and who at last found one to suit her, though it failed to please the little lassie, who remarked in the high tone which children use when they wish to be very emphatic : " Mother, don't you think that that old lady in that queer bonnet looks just like the ' Old woman who went so high, to sweep the cobwebs off the sky ' ?"