MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

Evening Star, Issue 3299, 16 September 1873, Page 3

MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

The Age still makes rapid headway. I notice that almost every day it has several notices of meetings which do not appear in the Argus. Edward Wilson will have to come back to this country. Some people are talking about an attempt to get Prince Arthur on a visit to this country. It is to be feared that Royalty is too sick. The weather has been fitful of late, but we have occasional sunny afternoons to bring out the flatterer* on the Collins street “block.” The fashionable, almost universal walking dresses for young ladies continue to be in tho modified riding-habit style. The most general color is some shade of green ; blue comes next in favor, then red, and after that a color which is vulgarly but forcibly described as “sludge.” Mourning costumes are in the same style. Young ladies of one family go in pairs or trios, all in a color. The uniform is a dashing one for Cupid’s sharpshooters. Hats of the saucer shape are all the rage. The most piquant costume out is one of these little hats, with a quiet feather; grey tippet and muff, flecked with that nice pale brown; a green dress and jacket in one, the riding-habit fashion. Black half-mourning, with tippet and muff, as just described, looks still more genteel, and is frequently adopted merely for that reason. The winter dresses of this year are the prettiest, and at the same time the quietest seen for many seasons. Nothing is so ridiculous as the information about fashions given in the weekly papers; they clip out the latest from the English files, and these are, of course, absurdly out of season for us. The editors ought to go back to the last winter fashions.

The best articles in the Argus now-a-days are understood to be from the pen of Mr W. Jardine Smith. More power to the clan. , Some time ago the attempt was made to establish a Matrimonial Bureau in Melbourne, and X believe it will shortly be renewed on a wide basis.

We-are bound to have a Four-in-hand Club in a few months. When the next Sydney races are over, and the sporting men return, there will bo a determined endeavor to set the Club going. There are not more than two or three of these turn-outs in Melbourne, so far as I am aware. One gentlemen keeps up a magnificent quartette of chesnuts. The misfortune is that our Governor is not likely to go in for this style of thing. The petition to Mr William Morley, of Moiieyite and Carrickite celebrity, asking him to allow himself to bo put in nomination again for the Sandridge Borough Council, is signed by twelve lady ratepayers, among the rest, the rule being place aux dames, of course, and they are placed first. This is a significant token of sympathy with Mr Morley, in his recent prosecution. I think I may confidently state that the public sympathy is, outside of a small circle, entirely with Mr Morley. Carrickites plead justification, and declare that such will be proved when the facts are all before the public. People in general say that absolutely no amount of provocation ought to have led to the revenge which was taken upon Morley. But fancy the lady ratepayers, a round dozen, heading the list! Who will say, after this, that the ladies intend to look on merely ? It is rumored that a clergyman has been hit a little over mining speculations. “Vanity! vanity!” . The Melbourne Public Library is re-opened after the annual cleaning. The ingenious manner in which the trustees were enabled to close the museum during the preparations for the Governor’s Ball, has escaped notice. They announced 'that it was necessary to shut up Several days'for “cleaning,” anti tbps brought t}ie whole affair off comfortably. The Public Library is a constant source of grumbling. While a whole department is given up to the vile and immoral trash known as old plays, and the immoral novel literature of the last century is devoured with advidity by the frequenters of

tho institution, no modem novel is allowed therein. Sir Walter Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot are alike excluded. Yet such • übbish as Ainsworth’s Guy Fawkes can bo read in the old numbers of Bentley's Miscellany, and any number of tales of equal ability to that in tho other bound-up magazines. The general public find tho various free libraries in the suburbs much pleasanter and more useful. Collingwood, Richmond, Prahran, and St Kilda each has its free library, where novels are admitted ; and the stamp of visitors at all these places is infinitely superior t ■ that of the visitors to the Melbourne Public Library, which is a perfect sink of loafcrago, attracted there by the large amount of vicious fiction that finds a place, while all elevating fiction, except it be poetry or consecrated by the dust of a century at least, is excluded. Public opinion is sure to be stirred up on this subject sooner or later.

Apropos of the flight of those birds of passage, the book-makers, for Sydney,a little story may be told respecting one of their recent passages—they alwaj's go altogether—from Sydney to Melbourne, after a big race. There was much card-playing on the voyage, only for fun, and a long box on deck was found very handy for a game. The box, unbeknown to the cardplayers, contained a coffin and a corpse ! The Melbourne Athenaeum committee are sorely exercised over Ouida’s novels. Subscribers are clamorous for them ; if they are asked for once a day, they are twenty ; but the reply is that, beyond a couple of mild specimens, the committee will not go. In fact they are determined to “ weed her,” Yet here is George Robinson bringing out Puck, and all the fastest of the lot. The committee will have to give way. Ouida will break down tho clam, come in with a flood, and subscribers will rush to slack their thirst for the feverish draughts. Committeemen say, “Look here, if subscribers demand ‘Tom and Jerry,’ ‘The Mysteries of London,’ and ‘ The Lady of the Camelias,’ are we to provide them ?” “ Yes !” reply the freething ladies and gentlemen. Other subscribers are trying hard to get in a heap of Andrew Jackson Davis’s works, and suchlike Spiritualistic literature, but they have not so promising a show of success as the Ouida tribe. Mr Enderby Jackson, who brought out the Rickards Troupe, is in Melbourne, and is said to have some capital novelty forthcoming. The next Colonial Bank meeting is looked forward to with great interest, inside and outside. There is likely to be a dreadful row, from what I can hear. It is said that Goodwin’s defalcations amount to L‘20,000. If so, good-bye to dividend ! unless, indeed, the comfortable doctrine be adopted, as was done at a similar pinch by another institution, that reserve funds are formed to give dividends in such oases. The Hon. John O’Shannassy will have room to say now, “Look what you have done by losing me. ” On dit that Sir Charles Gayan Duffy works away at some book, dark hints about which were thrown out during his late protracted residence at Sorrento.

Those who ought to know, you know, say there is now absolutely no between Messrs Francis and Casey. “ Blood is thicker than water, and place is thicker than blood.” In fact, the charwoman at the Treasury says F. and C. “is as thick as two thieves.” This pronuncimncnto could, of course, only be obtained by backstairs influence. The case of Slack v. Winder, fixed for Monday, in the Supreme Court, before Judge Barry, will prove funny. Mr Slack goes about saying, “ I won’t have Judge Barry, I’ll have Judge Fellows. Never mind if I’m beat, I’ll have him. I argued against him in the Supreme Court, and he was the perfect gentleman.” An endeavor, it is supposed, was made to get Judge Williams to try the case, since Slack had served Judge Barry with a subpoena, but Judge Williams is not the sort to take the bench out of his turn. —N. Z. Herald.