Our Contributors.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 461, 21 December 1880, Page 2

Our Contributors.

THE MELBOURNE EXHIBITION.

(By Garnet Walch.)

Statues—Federation—"Old books, Wine, Old friends"—An epigram—Babbits— A pest and its cure.

And, talking of statues, would it not be n. good idea for the Governments of New South Wales and Victoria to conjointly bear the expense of an allegorical group

representing the two colonies clasping hands, the said group to bo erected, say midway on the Albury bridge—as an enduring sign of the friendship existing and to exist between the two sisters ? It will not be many more years, I trust, ere New South Wales and Queensland will be similarly united, and then, with South Australia following suit, we shall have & grand trunk line indeed, enabling our Adelaide cousins to run up to Brisbane, with a peep at Melbourne and Sydney en passant. And then, my friends, then comes federation, when the great Australian dominion, no longer divided against itself, shall feel its foundation secure and be a power amidst the great ones of the earth. Meanwhile I maintain that my Albury statue ia a good suggestion, and I hopelo see my friend MacKennal, our crack sculptor here, hard at work upon the model before 1881 has dawned upon

It is strange that one of the last acts of Sir Redmond Barry's life was to painfully visit the Public Library to preside at a meeting of trustees called for the purpose of appointing a successor to the present librarian, who has asked to retire on his pension. There have been many new trustees appointed lately, and their ideas have not always been in harmony with those of Sir Redmond, who, to use his. own expression, " liked old books to read, old wine to drink, and old friends to help," and in place of Mr Marcus Clarke, tho wall known been sublibrarian of the Public Library for nearly twelve years, and who was looked upon by the whole literary world of Victoria as the legitimate successor of his chief,recommended the late Mr W. H. Archer, tho late Registrar-General. Mr Archer is a Catholic (converted), and a strong party politician.

The next favourite among the new men was Mr Bride, the assistant librarian at the University, who contested an election for three hundred a year, the " professors " supporting him strongly. The Government, I understand, will refuse to confirm the recommendation of Mr Archer, who has just received £2500 compensation. Marcus Clarke, who has a habit of taking life epigrammatically, was at the French play when the news arrived of the decision of the trustees. He shrugged his shoulders, and smiled sweetly. When the curtain fell the French officer who had been sitting next to Marcus handed round to his friends the following mot :— A. B. C. A was an Archer, who shot fer the "gold," B was a Bride, to be purchased and sold, C was a cleric, with a quill dipped in gall, Who could kill, if it pleased him, Bride, Archer, and ail. Have you any rabbits in your neighborhood ? Ido not mean the caged pets fed on caresses and cabbage leaves, but the bunnies that roam abroad at their own sweet will : individually such innocent looking bundles of fur, but collectively so fearfully illustrative of the power of unity. It has been my lot while travelling recently throughout the length and breadth of Victoria to meet on all sides with the most painful accounts of the ravages committed by these pesta. Hero it would be some fine homestead abandoned to ruin and decay ; there an entire run many Ihousand acres in extent, witlout an atom of gijisa for the sheep, and all owing to the rabbits. It certainly is high time that the Government took the matter forcibly in hand. Ad interim, private individuals must do the best they can to stamp out the plague And when we remember that natural historians calculate 1,274,840 as the probable progeny of a single pair of rabbits in four years, and when \V3 come to picture these million and odd hundreds of thousands as all married an! with large families, we begin to get an idea of what awful jumps the rabbit census must take in a country suited for burrowing purposes; so that, recognising the rapid strides which the evil is making, the warfare against the rabbits should be prompt and without quarter.

My thoughts have been led into this channel by noticing in the Exhibition a compact machine, termed a " rabbit annihilator," manufactured I believe by [ Messrs M. and F. G-. Croker, of East Charlton. and used in conjunction with chemicals furnished by Mr Ogburn, of the same town. I have had no opportunity of seeing the machine at work, but take it for granted that it is thoroughly efficient, since I have the testimony of a rustic gentleman v;ho, standing at my murmured gruffly, but with a s/.Usfied tone, "Ah ! that's the little beggar to turn the bunnies' toes up, I've seen 640 acres cleared with it in less than a month." Questioning my rural friend, I ascertained that the mode of using the machine s simply to light its small charcoal fire, charge it with chemicals, insert the nozzle into the opening of your rabbit burrow, • work your bellows gently for a few minutes, and "my word," to again quote Rusticus, "if there's a thousand of them inside its a case with the crowd." I wish certain political burrows I wot of could be as easily cleared of their vermin. Eh! Ararat ? Since writing the above paragraph I've discovered that Messrs McLean Bros, and ' . Rigg are the Melbourne agentb for what I hereby christen " Croker's Holocaustic Bunnicidal Blast." McL. and B. speak very highly of the whole affair. I leave the rest to them and my readers.