A DUNEDINITE IN VICTORIA.

Evening Star, Issue 3067, 17 December 1872, Page 2

A DUNEDINITE IN VICTORIA.

Melbourne, December 7.

The Argva has attempted to dishonor me with a leader. 1 still live; the sun still shines. I wish you to bear in mind that one paid Argus leader-writer is now busily and oracularly announcing the dogma that we are all to be washed into “ everlasting nothing” by a “magnetic wave.” I gave the “ magnetic ” Argus leader-writer a sound pen-and-ink thrashing in the Age in June last. Lunatics are remarkably “rememberful ” of such castigations. It is more than probable that the Argus leader-writer who has such an honor as sending Victorian news to New Zealand, is the writer of the impotent attempt to prevent me from telling the truth without being paid for so doing. Any sane reader who knows the difference between a virtuous and a fallen woman will be glad of my exposure of the social ulcers that both underlie and float on the surface of Melbourne society. The Argus editor has met his match. Hs has met a nun who will not allow bin to have the last word,

one who sees all the petty personal motives underlying his assumed guardianship of the interests of Victoria. I need care littli for the slanders of a paper v hose editors suggested that a pump should ho erected to tho memory of the late respected Ricbaid Heales, and who wrote this when the memory of that politician was still fresh in the weeping thoughts of a disconsolate widow and her orphans. Not very long ago one of the Aryus editors was a clergyman. When leaving his pastorate he was asked by the church trustees if ho was going to edit the A rym, and both in print and orally he denied the accusation, hut immediately afterwards it was well known that he had assumed the editorial chair of the Aryu*. In short the Aryu* is a paper built on lies. It has no social or political influence. Politicians, merchants, and actors pursue an all the more successful career when thoroughly brow-beaten by the A ryu*. I can prove this assertion. A politician, some time ago, found ho was losing favor with his constituents. “ And you will never regain favor,” said one of them to him, “till the Aryus abuses you. ” He soon found a plan whereby to excite the ire of the Aryu*, ami the consequence was immediate reinstatement in the favor of the electors. Its “praise is censure, its censure praise.” It is the best hated paper in Victoria, and of its moral prosperity, I must say, in Chinese phrase, “No aavee.” If the Argus had known that the tendency of its attack on me was to benefit me in Otago, it certainly would have never mentioned my name. As to what Victoria thinks of me, I care little. The weather is, and has been, very warm. It is a perfect satirical untruth to call Victoria “ the finest climate ia the world.” In summer, we rise from bed not with a wish to leave bed—not refreshed ; but, on the contrary, intolerably weary. We then feel as if we had been thoroughly well pummelled with hot bricks. Flies swarm in millions, bugs crawl upon the walls, snakes crawl through the grass, and when the heat becomes intense, both sandy and availing blight attack the eyes, and render work impossible. The hot glare renders reading oppressive. The 1 torrents of semi-tropical showers merely convert the atmosphere into a vapor-bath. The whole being, the mind, the body, the morals are relaxed ; ami yet tho Aryus would have us believe that Victorians' are a people of average morality. I suppose there is no place under the sun where the code of morality is so relaxed. The Education Bill has been metamorphosed in the Council. It went up to tho Upper House a fiercely democratic measure, it comes out shorn of its fair proportions, a Bill of which no fair clergyman need be afraid. It is not now Mr Stephens'. Bill at all. At first the local boards of advice were only to recommend teachers for election to the Minister of Justice ; now the Board may direct their appointment. At first the Board could not dismiss or suspend a teacher; now the power to suspend is superadded. As is usual, th* clergy is sure to win the day. They want the Bill to be so frnmed that the school will hi a kind of vestibule to the Church, and they are sure to succeed. Owing to action taken by the Dean of Melbourne, Judge Pohlraan, lately one of the Vice-Presidents of the Religions Tract Society, was deemed ineligible for re-election, and was tabooed accordingly,, which has brought the Dean into disrepute, more par ticularly as Mr A’Beckett. the other VicePresident, resigned in disgust. The sole cause of this action was tho scandalous reports of a late servant of the Judge’s on the subject of the marriage of tho Judge with her more fortunate fellow-servant. The Exhibition has been a great success. The up-country children in thousands are BOW being conveyed to see both it and the great organ, which is truly a splendid instrument, but no organist has as yet been selected. The votes would bo for Signor Giorza, but he asks a salary double that of any other player. He was formerly organist to the King of Portugal. Mr Hill, of Sydney, etands second to the Italian in public estimation. At the end of the very hot summer of 1871, Chief Justice Stawell and other eminent Victorians visited Dunedin in search of health ; but the Chief did not fully secure that golden gift, and his doctors tell h»m he must receive a protracted leisure. He has applied for, and will from March proximo receive 24 months’ holiday, whereby a successor will be needed. For apparent reasons it is thought inadvisable to delegate any such successor to the obscurity of private practice after having uph-ld the justice of the Crown for two years. Moreover, all the judges are overworked, and one more permanent judge would not be too much, especially as when the Chief’s leave expires, it is very probable that another big man may want fresh air It is decided to make another judge, Mr Fellowes was offered the post. He wisely delayed a veto, but at length, balancing his income of Lsooi) with that of the judicial L2SUA, he at length sa : d “Ko.” The office is really going a-begging. We want a good article, but the good article wants a good price. It is possible that the Government may meet Mr Fellows’ pecuniary views, but if they do they will have to raise all the judges’ salaries. But a far greater sensation has been the atrocities against poor aboriginal natives of remote Pacific islands, performed on tho lone ocean on board the Carl ship, the property of Dr, Patrick James Murray, H. C. Mount, and a W. Morris, and others. Befractory natives had their boats sunk by pig iron bars made for the purpose, and rebellious blacks in the hold were fired upon, and iu the moving, the wounded were thrown overboard, Murray turned Queen’s eyidence, was accepted, and thus saved his precious neck. Mount is brother to that Mount who is part proprietor of Lottie, the female gymnast. It seems the Mount family are fond of sensation. It is not at all unlikely that this Mount will have to mount a “trapeze” far more sensational than any Lottie ever dared to ascend. In England the affair has caused a great shock, and the Imperial Government are sure to take steps to prevent its repetition. Of course Murray, who was doctor to the expedition sent m search of Burke and Wills, and also there, it is said, stole the brandy intended for the sick, pretends to be penitent; but no one believes in such politic hypocrisy. Ballarat, compared to this part, is dull. It is now chiefly an agricultural district, but gold can still be got by adopting more scientific methods; and one new method, projected by Mr JR. M, Sergeant, seems likely to revolutionise gold-mining in old ground. So far as gold is concerned, Sandhurst, at all events, seems to shoot far ahead of Ballarat. Sandhurst supports a permanent theatre, which Ballarat docs not. Saturday excepted, Castlemaine is the quietest town of its size in Victoria. It is clean and neat, but silent and apparently deserted; but business in it is sound and neighborly, and the people are ▼ery church-going, decent and genteel. Melbourne is one grand fair. The Yankee element predominates. There is much life in the open air. Saturday night there is a sight well worth looking at, yet it would be wrong to say that all the people are well dressed. But downright rags are the exrep. tion ; a large number are over-dressed. Yon see a great variety of fashions. The Grecian fc.nd and Alexandra limp may be seen very often There are certain ladies—merchants and professional men’s wives and daughters —who regularly walk around Bourke and Collins streets from 3.30 to 5 p.m. This is called “doing the Hock.” (You remember George Price—Darrell’s girl of the period personation ?) To see and to be seen—that u the order of the day amongst a large numher in Melbourne. But there is another large number who live in poor homes, iu poor clothes, on poor diet, and who, for this hard fare work very hard and very hopelessly. I refer to factory girls and needlewomen. Poverty must lead to crime. The amount of juvenile crime in Melbourne is awful. Mere boys sod girls sw quite old m ™e, and bad parents H well *» WW «W 4wß f ,b4

ancient vicious women, who live by debauching children, are responsible for this state of things, for which tne authorities, as yet, have provided no remedy. Long before si»me of this class of Melbourne girls reach the “dignity” of being larrikinesses, they are vicious human beings, anil so secretly is their ruin effected, that •< ven sharp Melbourne detectives can no rely see effects and given c uses, but cannot grapple with them.

Why was Mr Duffy forced from office? Because he overlooked the Parliament, and substituted for them the constituencies. He therein committed a great error. Yet that was not tho nominal issue on which he office. The gro.'S abuse of patronage was the nominal issue on which he lost office, His case proves that oratory cannot govern a community—that literary ability cannot do so. A State is a big shop, and requires merely big shopkeeping abilities. These Mr Duffy bad not. Moreover, even when obviously in the wrong, he can be very bitter, and bitterness provokes bitterness. What his future, fate may be, it is impossible to guess. Hosts of people say he will never hold tho reins again, hut in less than twenty years there hive been thirteen Ministries in Victoria, and his evident motto is “ Nil desperandum.” He has a LIOOO a-year pension, and, if prudent, can snap his fingers (pecuniarily) at his foes. His eldest sou is now a barrister, Sir James M ‘Culloch, Mr Michie, Mr A spin all, are now all seeking health in Europe. Mr Michie has found that which was lost—namely, his voice, and Mr Aapinall, who was mentally diseased, is recovering. Sir James M‘Culloch is also somewhat better, Mrs Aspinall, by favor of Mr Duffy, is postmistress at Emerald Hill. (To he continued.)