Our Contributors.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 454, 26 November 1880, Page 2

Our Contributors.

THE MELBOURNE EXHIBITION.

(By Garnet Waloii.)

The Marches aux flours.—Generous Germans.—An Apology.—True Wine.— False Wine.—A Biscuit.—A Composi tion.—A Mistake.

Amongst other extra attractions we are promised several flower shows. May I

suggest an improvement in this direction in the shape of flower markets modelled after the well-known Parisian marches aux fleurs and affording the public facilities for purchasing as well as admiring the floral beauties exhibited for their approval Give Corydon an opportunity of presenting: Pliillis with a priza bouquet or choice pot-plant, and Pliillis, my word on it, will take good care that Corydon honours the show with his patronage.

Apropos of presentations, our German friends have certainly been very generous. Their gifts of statuary to the various colonies, per favor of Professor Reuleaux, are really valuable, and will serve to keep the kind donors in remembrance for many a long day to come. And hero I seize the opportunity of an explanation to a certain warm-blooded Teuton who, in his own local journal, has taken exception to a remark in one of the first 06 my former series of letters. I spoke, if I recollect, of the marked difference between the German and French Commissioners, and more than hinted that the former were at a discount as regards courtesy. Assuming the language of La Belle France, I exclaimed in mock-heroic words A bas les Allemandes! This my Gippslander has taken as a studied affront to the entire German nation. As if I, who adore Germans in the abstract, and enjoy my lager bier and saver kraut like an echter Deutscher —as if I, who spent two of the happiest years of my life in Germany, could or would speak against the grand nation as a whole. I

On the contrary, 1 here record my opinion that if we Englishmen were onehalf as well educated as the bulk of the Germans ; i£ our laws, literature, and leisure-hour amusements were half as good as those of Germany, we should be healthier and happier. Why, I am dreiviertel German in my tastes and predilections. I consider Bismarck the greatest man, bar one, on the face of the earth, and would rather live a day in Berlin than dwell a thousand years in Footsciay. What I meant, then, in crying " A bas les AMemandes" was not a howl of execration against our good friends by the million, but against certain few who "dressed in a little brief authority " have in Melbourne, in 1880, given themselves "airs" tho reverse of national, and acted parts most un-germane to the occasion.

lliere are several capital exhibit:--- of co'oni.'d wine, or rather several exhibits of capital colonial wine. Ji is matter for congratulation amongst all true Australians that every year sees this important product coming more and more to the front. Age and proper classification has much to do with this; so. too. hns the gradually-gained experience of the right soils for the right grapes ; so that one fine day we shall be able to point to Australian wine side by side with No. 0 claret, Carte Blanche champagne, Johannisherger, Liebfrauinileh, Licrymae Christi, and the other monarchs of the wine world. The only fear lies in the fact that as the demand increases so does the inducement to adulterate.

Regarding wine adulteration, read this, Oh lovers o£ the squeezed grape, and tremble. Not one third of the wine now drunk in Paris is pure grape wir.e. Tire wine crop of 1879 produced only 25,000,000 hectolitres, while the annual consumption in France is about 45,000,000 hectolitres. The deficit has been made up by wine manufactured out of raisins until the price of raisins has risen from twelvo francs to seventy-five francs the 100 kilogrammes. Now r.jjsins have been replaced by glucose, molasses refuse, rotten apples, old prunes, dates, figs and other refuse fruits. The abominable liquids are coupes with Spanish wines and artificially colored. Manufactories for making this wine have sprung up in all directions. Near Paris alone there are seven large steam-power wine manufactories. Ugh ! a glass of Tahbilk hock, good restaurateur, to sweeten my imagination 1

With one's wine one takes a biscuit. A biscuit! Is there a more universally known and widely used comestible throughout the globe than that which, with a vast variety of species and kinds, comes under the generic title of biscuit ? From the hope of the family, testing his first tooth on a delicate lady's finger, to the ratafia which grandpapa nibbles with his wine* From the fragile motsa of the Jewish Passover, the consecrated wafer of the Roman Catholic Church, to the dense disc of ship's bread, whereon Jack lays his piece of salt junk, when far away from England, home, and beauty ; from the picnic of the parlor party, to the schoolboy's surreptitious abernethy, from Sir Carnaby Jinks' devilled biscuit, to my lady's macaroons, who does not associate sonf&jthing or somebody with biscuits, in addition to the fact that he himself has often eaten them.

The above words are quoted from a neat little pamphlet which has just fallen into my hands. It is a description of Messrs Guest and Co.'s biscuit manufactory William Btreet, Melbourne, and contains not only a verj' interesting account of the various processes of biscuit making, from the plastic dough to the finished article, but a number of illustrations showing some of the more prominent machines employed in the factory. From this pamphlet I learn that Messrs Guest and Co., who by the way have taken medals innumerable at many Exhibitions, here and in the Old World, were complimented by the Melbourne Age'm May 1857 upon employing two men and-three boys! The factory, even with all the latest labor saving steam appliances, now pays wages to upwards of fifty hands. Guest and Co. have a very striking trophy in the Victorian Court, close to the main avenue. This trophy, radiant with gilding and bannerets, glistening with plate glass and containing a bewildering variety of the articles manufactured by the firm, towers aloft in farinaceous triumph, and sets all the visitors' mouths a-watering by its tantalising display of variously shaped delicaciss. It was at the trophy that I was presented with brochure from whose pages I have quoted—and speaking even without authority from headquarters, I am sure that Messrs Guest and Co. (William street, Melbourne), will kindly forward a copy of their tiny work to any reader of the Mail who may wish to know about the

subject,

"The finest composition." This was the exclamation 1 heard when standing the other day close to Rocke and Co's fairy chamber, near the main avenue. The finest composition ! I immediately jumped at the conclusion that the speaker alluded to my friend B.s little arrangement with his creditors. It was certainly the finest composition I have heard of lately. I listened — i( And a dip that any man might be proud of." A dip! So was B's. A dip into tho pockets of confiding merchants, a dip into the seething Charybdis of insolvency, from which he fished up that pearl of a dividend, Id in the £. I drew nearer to the speaker. He was a man of middle age, evidently well-to-do ; a man of experience, a man of nous, a man of weight. To him said T, " Sir, you are right : B's assignment was certainly a fine'composition,' and a 'dip'to be proud of "—whereat, turning towards me with a brow of lurid cloudiness, an eye of lightning, and a voice of thunder, the well-to-do, experienced gentleman replied, " Sir, I spoke not of any B's composition, nor of any wasp's composition, nor of any dip such as you refer to. The ' dip ' I speak of is as an electric light compared with the farthing * rushlight-— " , " Excuse me," interpolated • I, " a penny." " the pennj' affair you mention. It is to Hood and Co.'s patent sheep dip composition that I refer, and there, sir, thero " —pointing to a glafea case containing two great domes of yellow

there is tbe sublime article in

<q ie-tiioii " Need I say that I retired abashed, and left the respectable squatter (as I afterwards discovered him to be) to expatiate to his friends on the merits of Hood and «Co.'s patent sheep dip composition, which by the way costs a little, and is also worth a little, more than a penny.