OUR MELBOURNE LETTER.

Evening Star, Issue 3872, 22 July 1875, Page 3

OUR MELBOURNE LETTER.

Melbourne, July 14. Bain at last I For a fortnight we have had clear, cold weather and some sharp frosts; one night «e had respectable ice caps on all the pools; now it has broken again, and we may expect the heavy rains usual at this season. We have not teen without our little excitement since my last In politics there has been the sudden development of a new craze on the land question, which prolonged the Land Bill debate and threatens to introduce another “ cross-division” into the current classification of parties. The doctrinaires who follow Mr Mill on the impracticable side of his teaching are trying to force into practice the land-leasing theory in opposition to the alienation practice. If over it could succeed in human society their plan might have had a fair chance in a community where no land had ever been sold, but could certainly never work well under our present circumstances. It is a thousand pities that our system of education is so imperfect. We provide free education for the dirty little street boys, and compel them to go to school ; we endow a University for the upper classes and forbid professional men to practise without proper training: but the very men who are entrusted with the most difficult profession of all, get absolutely no traiuing at all. They have to make laws, and they do not know law; they have to work a constitution of whose very structure they are either ignorant, or, what is worse, misinformed; they have to develop it without the remotest notion of its mode of growth ; to carry on a great history of whose past they know nothing; and, above all tasks the most difficult, they have to manage human nature of all types and interests—a task to which they bring not merely ignorance, but conoeit of knowledge. One could forgive them almost all else if they only knew maukind; and, to judge by their actions, that is exactly the kind of knowledge they are least capable of attaining. It is, perhaps, hopeless to ask that they shall possess it; but could not something be done tc secure that a member of the Lower House (at least) should know the ABC of his business ? Why cannot we have an agitation for “ the higher education of members of Parliament?” It would be at least as sensible as that for the higher education of women, and would do much more good. If it only succeeded ever so little, it would at least stop such blun dering as universal leasing, or that other erasthat is just now on the notice paper—legis'a tive prohibition against any man’s holding more than a fixed amount of property—a proposal to stop “dummyism” by compelling all rich people to employ “ dummies 1 ’* Our Popish inhabitants —one can hardly call them fellow-citizens after the late allocutions from Rome —are rather active just now. Two steps of theirs hare almost simultaneously forced themselves on notice —one provoking public indignation, and the other public laughter. A neat little thing in the child-steal-ing line has been done by a Mr Dalton, “ S. J.,” and the systematic practised management of the whole affair seems to warrant the belief that it is only one of many cases It seems that a widow named Bates died leaving two children in the hands of a Mrs Smeaton —all tlw parties belonging to the English Episcopalian Church. Mr Dalton, “ having the good of the Church” at heart saw a chance of increasing the Popish population by a few units, and determined to seize it. So he went to Mr Call, the Police Magistrate, and coolly asked for an order to take possession of the children on his dictum that they were little Bomauists. Of course the Magistrate refused, and equally of course Mr Dalton went and told Mrs Smeaton that he had got the Magistrate’s order to take the orphans from her. On his way

between the Court and the house he picked up a constable, who seems to have followed the priest as obediently as he would have done his sergeant. For some inscrutable reason aMr Hill, a Protestant minister and a sort of c ; t/ missionary, who looks after the sad cases that arise in the Police Courts, also accompanied him. With his lie in his mouth, his constable at his back, and his Protestant ally at bis side, Mr Dalton overawed Mrs Smeaton, paid her something for taking charge of the children, endured plenty of hard words, promised that she should see the little Bates’s whenever sho wished, and carried them off. Mr Hill actually advised the woman to deliver them up; had he done fotherwise it seems probable that she would have resisted, or at least would have demanded the production of some legal authority. After a few days she asked leave to see her late proteges, when Mr Dalton, “S. J.,” coolly told her that it was impossible, as he did not know in the least where they were! The Rev, Mr Wollaston, how®ver, got hold of the facts and published them in the papers. His letter drew an answer from Mr Dalton, in which he virtually or directly admitted the main facts, raised two or three false issues, and alleged that the widow Bates _ was a Romanist. Further correspondence hitting the weak points of his case ensued, and he wrote a short note stating that he declined to say more unless compelled to do so in a comi. of justice. This cool defiance determined his opponents to apply for a writ of Habeas to produce the children, but meantime a member of Parliament gave notice of his intention to move the Assembly on the matter, so further action is suspended till the result of his motion is known.

So much for tho indignation'; now for the fum A deputation waited two days ago oh the Acting-Chief Secretary to complain of gross persecution and breaches of faith on the part of Government towards the Romish body. It came out that the “persecution” consisted in tlm children in Industrial Schools having to say their prayers in the same room with non Romanists, and in children of the two classes occupying beds in the same dormitory ! The deputation must have felt very comical when they said this, but how much more comical when they were gravely told that their little fellow sectaries had a separate room to say their prayers Ih, and that separation of sects in dormitories was neither practicable nor advisable ! The other complaint was really admirable in its impudence. They alleged that every attendant in the schools ought to be approved by their Archbishop, to be dismissed if he in any way incurred “my lord’s” displeasure, and that the Government bad broken faith by not periodically asking “ his lordship” if its servants were giving him satisfaction. But after the grave roasting which they got from Mr Ramsay upon the other point, they seem to have had no heart to urge this, so they made an agreement there and then among themselves to go and look with their own eyes for some more “ grievances.” No doubt in a few weeks we shall hear of them again. It is evident that the presumed weakness of the Government is stimulating all sorts of attacks upon them —those who have something to gain from them working by threats of withdrawal of support, those who have nothing to hope making the most disadvantage to the Government of anything that turns up. Of the latter class of assaults is that by Sir James M'Culioch and the ‘Argus’ concerning Judge Dunne. On the June 10 a Maryborough paper published a statement which in effect cams to this : that that gentleman was drunk on the Bench on the Bth. The Government made inquiries, and the charge is clearly disproved. The Judge was very ill, was compelled to take large quantities of chloi odyne, and suffered from its effects; that nothing more was wrong is the united testimony of magistrates, clerks ef courts, and attendants, and is confirmed by several medical certificates. Against this there is nothing to be set, but the “ impressions” of an unknown person who writes articles in a Maryborough paper. Now, on the 10th July, the ground of the charge is shifted from “ being drunk on the Bench on the Bth” to “spending the evening with some friends at the hotel on the 7th—in insuating of course such excessive drinking a a to unfit the Judge for duty next day and further, having travelled in the same carriage with a Cabinet Minister from Maryborough to Castlemaine ! This last absurdity is evidently meant, less to damage the Judge, than to give a side blow at the Minister. Sir Jae. M'Culioch has a notice of motion for further inquiry into the affair. To honest people outside it is disgusting that a civil servant, even in so high a position as a judge, cannot get simple justice (whether he be innocent or guilty) without political parties and motives being brought to tear upon his case. The brightest notion that we have been favored with for a long time has, however, sprung from the brains of our “leading journal” writers in reference to this affair. It was pompously suggested that a board of very great people should be appointed to inquire into Judge Dunne’s case, having for its chairman a judge of the Supreme Court 1 Imagine Sir Redmond Barry’s countenance on such a proposition being made to him! It would be worth any money to a good actor to be “ there to see,” Such an opportunity to study the righteous indignation of offended dignity does not occur onoe in a century. Has the interest of New Zealanders in telegram cases subsided yet? If not here is an item that will interest them. The ‘ Gipps Land Mercury ’ used te put in telegraphic news from Home, without paying its share of the cost, and the ‘Argus ’ got an injunction against the proprietor. This person is trying to get up a subscription amongst the country papers to enable him to appeal, and they won’t give him anything—at least some of them. They say—“We pay for our telegrams; go thou and do likewise.”

Do any of your readers know what “ algorism ’’ is ? I don’t, but somebody advertises it, much as if he were a tradesman and had a stock of the article on sale. But then he is a Professor,” or “ artist,” or what not, in conjuring, _bo_ that hypothesis does not fit. I wonder if it has anything to do with the late frosts ? If so, it would come much more acceptably in six mentis hence than now. Whatever thing may be, the word at any rate is not English, and so the matter remains a puzzle.

From cold to hot brings me to fires. The Victoria Sugar Company have bought Messrs Joshua Bro’s. works, and so have once more a monopoly of the refining business here. Messrs Luke and Co. have suspended. An inquest was held on their fire, but nothing ebcited to explain it, though most unjust suspicions were cast upon more than one person. The Coroner took occasion to remark upon the injustice of the law, which allows anyone to demand an inquiry into a fire on payment of L 5, no matter what the circumstances or his motive.

The Irishmen are threatening an O’Connell centenary and a statue J Why doesn’t somebody get up a millenium fuss about—Noah, for instance. He was a really great man ; for didn’t he preserve the whole race of us ? I feel a deep inward conviction that he would make every bit as pretty a statue as O’Connell. I would say “prettier,” only I’m afraid some “S.J.” would kidnap me, like the little Bates children, “ for the good of the Church,” and probably make an auto-da-fi of me for the special good and improvement of my own soul and body. The Rev. Charles Clark is going heavily into lecturing. All sorts of wonderful tales go about as to the money he made by four deliveries of “ The Tower of London ” piece in Town Hall, and it is said to be “ taking well m the country. “ Charles Dickens ” did not draw so well. The rev. gentleman assisted the Caradmis at their farewell benefit, and is continually advertised as about to recite or lecture, or something of the sort. Those of you who know Melbourne at all will remember the Be/. Irving Hetherington, who long held an important position in the Presbyterian Church. He was removed by deith last week at the age of sixty-six, after an illness that did not appear to be very severe, but against which he had not strong;h to contend. His successor, the Kev. Mr Strong, is expected soon, having been sent for at the termination of Mr Stobbs’s*engagement as copastor.