MELBOURNE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 584, 27 June 1873, Page 3

MELBOURNE.

(Australasian SJcetcher.) b People who have been away from Mel- b bourne for ten or a dozen years find a won- hj derful change in the city. The suburbs fj have extended in a remarkable manner, especially* northwards; mansions have taken the place of temporary -dwellings in j the environs we are fond of describing as “ aristocratic;” stores that deserve the designation of palatial have been built in largo j numbers in the commcrc al part of the city, and some of our public buildings are gr*nd enough to challenge comparison with similar structures in the old country. In like f manner our public parks and gardens have, r with the exception of the Botanical gardens and those dreary wastes under the j control of the City Council, been greatly improved, and as the streets are well | lighted, and the supply of water is abundant, we have' generally the'* aspect of a J people whose material wants are well cared for. In respect of sanitary arrange- , ments, "too, it is to be confessed wo have made some advancement. We are, indeed, still debating whether it is a good or a bad thing to have'underground drainage, and, . meanwhile, the whole of our], liquid refuse flows into the river. But we have lately filled up many hundreds of cess-pits, we adopted pretty expensively] the earth-closet system, and where this plau has not been adopted, the City Corporation has undertaken to remove .weekly the night soil, which no longer soaks into the ground as it was formerly allowed to. But for all this we are not a clean people, and we do not recognise the necessity of building our houses in accordance with climatic necessities. Even much scavenging does not keep clean cur smaller streets, known uneuphoniously as “rights of way,”- and the condition of back yards is a standing reproach to us, notwithstanding that some of them are swept and garnished, and some few others are planted, in odd corners, with trees and flowers. Our architects do not yet include a man sufficiently conscious of tiro requirements of hygiene to permit the maintenance of health to he a paramount consideration in the building of houses. They go on adopting old forms and wornout systems, and owners of property have not yet been brought sufficiently under the obligations of the law' to acknowledge the importance of a regular and ample supply of fresh air into every room of every dwell-ing-house. Most of our public buildings arc curiously deficient in arrangements tor ventilation. The Town-hall, w'hich is to ho regarded as the most important of these although ostensibly Well-contrived in respect of ventilation, has been found in practice to be seriously deficient. On occasions when the great hall is crowded, or even only partially well-filled, the feeling of oppression is most apparent to those who have to sit for;two or throe hours in it, and the exhaustion following is of a kind to in- ' I duce a feeling of reluctance to ho again I present, save under the most imperative ob- | 1 ligations. In the hotels and lodging-houses, I the deficiency of the means for ventilation some time ago engaged the attention of the ! health officer for the city. Ho found, howf ever, that; although the Health Act gave him the power to take moans for rernedyi ing the deficiency in the ease of the com- ; mon lodging houses, he was powerless to i interfere with the hotels. The consequence i has been that the sleeping rooms in the hotels are, as a rule, mostunwholesomc, while the lodging-houses have been greatly improved, so that the lower tho social condition of lodgers the better off they arc in this condition of breathing. ; It w'ill require another generation or two i to pass away, however, hcfoie wc are con- ! viiiccd, as a community, that lofty, wellventilated rooms raid plenty of shelter from ■the sun, are imperative conditions in all i buildings, both public and private. No one ■ can question the purity of the atmosphere 1 in this city, for even in the busiest and 1 most c.'ovrdcd parts of it, vegetation thrives with a luxuriance but little different from > that observed in districts especially uiral. In ; Bourkc-sheet, for example, there are back 1 yards in which vines flourish and yield a 5 very wealth of fine fruit, and w r c have scon peaches grown in tho open air, within a t stone’s throw of the Anjus office, that would 1 have competed for tho piixc at a horticul--3 tural exhibition. We are, in fact, fortunate 1 in enjoying tho condition of prevalent atmospherical dryness. No murky blanket 3 of damp smoke hangs over us, as is the 1 fate of many English cities and towns. The ; products of combustion are rapidly diffused 3 and re-arranged, so that it is our own fault 1 if w'c do not breathe at all times good and > wholesome oxygen. Some of the gutters, 3 indeed, send up at times a reek of vileness; : but this, though disgusting enough, is not I- a tithe so dangerous as tho clammy, 1 sickening, second-hand air of iinpurtficd i rooms, and of which the majority of people ■ are so terribly unconscious. A society is in course of formation for i encouraging the cultivation of trees and - plants in windows and back yards, and for lining the sides of the wider streets with 1 shade trees. Something to a limited ex--3 tent has already been done in this diren- - tion ; but the advantages of a more exteni sive adoption of this city gardening arc so i obvious that a few gentlemen—some of i them scientific, some horticultural, but all ■ °f tbcm sanitarian and artistic—have comi Lined together to effect in an organised way , what, so far, has been done only in solitary 3 instances. They have been encouraged - in their project hy observing how comi pletely successful are the efforts, on a small ' scale, to make of windows small conser- ' vatories, and of hack yards little groves 3 and orchards. There is no reason why a I practice that has been found to be so easy i of accomplishment, and so good in its results, should not be made general; and, as I it is known that efforts of this kind have r succeeded beyond expectation in the old ; country, where the atmospheric conditions 3 are not so favorable for the purpose, it is felt that there is every reason for hopeful-

ness in Melbourne in an endeavor to diffuse a little poetry and promote health amid blank walls and unlovely fences, whose blankness and uuloveliness are so easy to be hidden with incense-breatfiing foliage_and flowers. From all of which it will bo seen that theroTexists a desire to make this city more habitable in tho true sense. Wo have been recently reproached, and with some reason, for boasting of our metropolitan progress. Perhaps the reproach comes in good time, so as to persuade us to substantiate practically the claims W'e have put forth to be considered an advancing community. No doubt, in many respects we have tho best reason for preferring such claims ; hut in other 'respects, 'of I a more strictly social kind, we are something behind the time, and there is no reasotfwhy, because w r e are but a young community, and therefore supposed to require only the coarser and more material wants of our nature, we should not take ’every measure [to assure the outer world that the claims of a mere animal existence are not the only aspirations of which we are conscious, but that we are practicably sensible to the dura vivimus vtiamus principle, and are determined to carry it out to the extent of our excellent opportunities.