MELBOURNE.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1985, 15 September 1869, Page 2

MELBOURNE.

(from our own correspondent.)

September 7th, 1869,

Your readers are probably aware that sailors have a superstition about the liking of a certain person, more frequently named than respected, for hot pitch, and about the terrible commotion that ensues when this favorite article, being suddenly demanded is not prepared. Something in our Victorian politics must have aroused the appetite very unexpectedly, for we are in the midst of a tremendous State tempest, that broke out of a clear sky. Mr MUulloch promised to fill up the vacant ofijcos and the cabinet as soon as the Land BUI passed, and he kept his word. He made one appointment that everybody expected, and probably everybody laughed at in his sleeve. He made another which everybody not a partizan must acknowledge to be in most respects far superior, and lo ! instead of secret smiles, all is dread denunciation. The former was Mr Wilson ; the latter the Hon. George Rolfe. Poor Mr Rolfe ! What has he done to deserve the sneers and insults that have been heaped upon him ? Only that he accepted office when it was offered to him, which his loudest detractors no doubt have done in like case, and possibly they might, in addition, have sought it, which he did not, I believe. Mr Wilson is the gainer in every respect, for while Mr M'Culloch loses supporters, and Mr Rolfe gets nothing but flouting, Mr Wilson escapes unnoticed, to the enjoyment of his official salary. Of course the Opposition were jubilant at such an unexpected disturbance in the enemy’s camp, and some of them are suspected of thinking that there might be a chance of their ousting the Government ; but I don’t believe in it. The Argus of course has been blowing the fire of disaffection with the bellows of affected indignation, and mock sympathy with the disappointed ones j but the disappointed ones have no hold on the country. Mr M'Culloch has—why I don’t know, but, as matter of

fact, he has it. It is probably better ; that there should be no change just ; now. Ait Opposition Government would be an ecclesistically prejudiced one, and with the State aid and the education questions in their present position that would bo an unspeakable calamity. And so let ns leave the blazing fat of politics, which has fallen so unexpectedly into the fire. The drought is becoming serious. We have had a few trifling showers on the seaboard, but up country almost literally none. The stock owners complain already. What will they do three months hence 1 And what three months after that ? Memtime the timber is being mercilessly felled at an increasing rate every day, and no steps are taken to check the mischief. Here is a real national evil going on; but our legislators are far too busy to see to it: for are they not engaged in discussing the question (so important to the “ liberties and rights of the people ”) whether every minister ought not necessarily to be chosen from Parliament members —with, of course, the mental reservation, “ And ought not I to have been the chosen ? ” We have not yet done with the controversy between pseudo science and the Bible, The discussion between Dr Bromby and Mr Dickinson is nearly done : that between Mr Naylor and Mr Higginson evaporated in a rather abusive letter by the former, and the subject is now being treated at large by two or three newspaper correspondents notably, one William Thomson. This gentleman seems to have been in India, and has got impressed by some very curious and wholly ridiculous ideas about the superiority of the Hindoos to the human race in general, and (of course) to us Englishmen in particular. I need hardly say, that in his fancy picture of the Hindoos there is no possible resemblance to the degraded beings they really are, and in his references to the “ grandest of all religious ceremonials, more imposing than the gorgeous spectacles of western worshippers, and in fervor never exceeded,” there is no hint of the abominations typified and even practised in them. I was reminded when reading this passage, of the tremendous and well deserved castigation inflicted by John Foster in one of his essays, upon a man (a military officer, I think,) who wrote a book about India in a kindred spirit to that of the letter I am noticing. ■\yhep I say that Mr Thomson is prepared to swallow whole the monstrous fictions about ancient Indian science, and even hints at washing them down with the four ages of four million years each at a draught, I think it will be admitted that he has effectually settled against himself all claim to be regaided as a reliable guide. The credulity of these people who are incredulous of the Bible is really astounding. These are the days of concerts ; we are flooded with them 5 a while ago we had none. Let us follow the thing which is just now all the rage, viz., the ascribing of all sorts of effects to sorts of impossible causes ; let mo ask whether the concert mania has anything to do with the outbreaks of burning hydrogen mountains in the sun. It would be quite as reasonable a speculation as some others relating to the said hydrogen jets. The father of Melbourne is gone home. The Hon. J. P. Fawkner died on Saturday last, at the age of 77. The funeral is to take place to-morrow.