OUR MELBOURNE LETTER.

Evening Star, Issue 3964, 8 November 1875, Page 2

OUR MELBOURNE LETTER.

Mi lbourne, October 30. Hospital Sunday is over. Tho institution itself nearly came to an end with this celebration of it. It is all very well for th" secular charities to get aid trom Christian bodies, but to abuse them at the same time is hardly good manners, and to outrage theit feelings in addition is worse. It E not only a mistake—it is a blunder. The amount realised this year is said to be less than last year, and rumors are afloat that the springs of private benevolence are being diminished by tapping them at the other end of the stratum— f.c., through church collections. i nhappily the Desecrauonists have got hold of the thmg and are making a fine 1 rojan horse of it. Under pn fence of Interesting children in the “sacred cause of ch rity ” tuoy got up monster children's concerts in the open aii, mined the Sunday School attendance for two weeks, and aroused a, silent but_ very deep f.eli g of dislike to Hospital Sunday in the. minds of many people who Ware, before'favorable to it.

All the town for these two days has been talking about a certain James Gat«sh use. This man, being Mayor of Melbourne, seems to . have become intoxicated wi hj his high position ; and as his term of office is within a few days of its close, that intoxi ation seems to h-vo sissumed not only a chi<>nic, hut a more <•ffi-ndve form. Perhaps oilier causes as w< ll a hii> hij-h positi. u may li.ive liad a share in producing tl at result. ,T iine-’s last public outIne dc was to lead the T .wii II .11 Committee, of wii csi evas ;t r elnlu-r, into in caking are gu; tion of the Council th >t created them, and then resigning in a pe: when the Council “stopneo hi? iittie game.” This “little gani" ” was the Fri'clough tntcrtaimnetits, of whirl) I made mention a v. idle ago. James’s next exploit was to override < onncil, committen, and everybody else, by letting the H -.ti himself for a concert next unday (tomorrow). Ofteusibly the affair was to benefit, the Hospital Sunday Fund ; re lly, it was an entertainment under similar auspices to the Fairclough concerns. > atnrally enough those who objected to the latter objected also to the former, and some of them wrote to Gatehouse telling him so; whereupon ho waxed very wroth, and took the first opportunity to show it That opportunity came fitly enough at a dinner to—whom do you think?—Beaney I Concerning whom, lot ;t suffice to say, that our hospital constituency Ml low enough in electing him on the medical staff, ami that mo deeper disgrare could be done to the City then by its inhabitants giving him a banquet. At that time of the feast when men may safely bring forth the wine that is wu se, James Gatehouse made a speech, inveighing violently against somebody who had written a letter to him. This letter he pulled out of his pocket, shout- ' ing that it charged him with profanity, blasphemy, and sundry other pleasantly-named proceedings, The guests oaug-' t his fire, and shouted “ Name !” his friends cau lit his coattails aud tried to quiet him down ; an unlimited number of rapid reporters caught at the letter, but unsuccessfully: curtain falls on the tableau of screaming and scrimmage, amidst which some sober (minded) person savagely secured and secreted the paper. But James has not done his pranks ns yet—oh, dear no ! The concert was to consist of the “ Creation,” and Ui Murska was to sing. But in order ro sing it is necessary to hj .ve copies, and the Philharmonic Society were the owners of the, only copies here. Now. the Society wisely resolved to keep out of all disputes, so when an ap[dication came to i hem from Gatehouse to come and sing tor him and bring their music tin y determined that as a -ociety they would not do so, evidently remembering that by far * their best support comes from the religious public. But they added a most comical rider, to the gracious effect th-i-u any of their members might go aud help if they pleased I However it was not that that Gatehouse wanted ; “ not them, • but theirs ”—v e., their music ; and as the rules forbid its being lent for public performance within ten mile* of Melbourne (and very properly, in order to prevent rival societies from hurting them by means of their own property) the resolution did not suit James. So James gained over the conductor of his concert and the st-or- tary of the Society to persuade the librarian to break the rules. He refused. So, as he would not break their rules, they broke open las Picks, coolly stole the music, carried it off iu triumph to the Town Hall, and handed it over to Gatehouse ! The librarian, on learning this, went and fetched it track. What followed is very difficult to learn in detail, but these facts are not disputed : that Gatehouse sent two detectives to the librarian’s house at eleven o’clock at nieht, with orders to .-ur<-st him ; that the secretary, who accompanied them, stripped, auii was about to assault the man in his own drawing-room; and that the detectives, by threats and intinib iation, compelled the librarian to l-o with them to the Town Hall. t«kiug th# musio with him, and to g ve it up ro Gatehouse. That august person seems to have been (according to the secretary’s account) “furious, awe-ring that, he would not leave the town l ull until he had the music, or Lsmble in gaol.” (> .amble is the-librarian.) He was found in .hj- Mayor’s room, n the. comp, ny o( several persons and a number of wbi -key b'-fle?. 1 iier nt midnight he heir a mock Court with himae.-f for joint prosecutor and ju ge, gave the unhappy Gamble a long lecture, called him a thief aud burglar, aud sent km home (he poor musician asked for his property back, but was refused. The President of tbe Society, as legal owner of the copiw, has instructed his so-icitor to take the necessary steps to recover them, and there its talk of several actions against all the parties to this extraordinary outrage. Is this a specimen of the “ freedom ” that is meant when we hear about the “ Sunday Freedom ” movement ? Matters political are in suspense till to-night, when .Sir James M’Culloch will declare th# Ministeiial policy iu an address to the electors of Warrnambuol. The au(i-ministeiial Press is very violent, and assumes a tone of cerlain victory, but deeds not words are-the true index to the strength of Mr Berry’s friends, and judging by that test I should say their words are only “big and swelling,” Their candidates go peeping about to see whether they will have a chance, but do not commence work; and in tbe two constituences where they Jiave the best chance very little success attends them. Under the circumstances the old tricks are being revived, aud their chief oigan has by its performances revived a happy nickname that it onoe enjoyed—“ Ananias” is once more th# laughter-provoking exclamation when a jubilant “ tcll-a-cram ” comes from the country. Nevertheless there seems some probability that Sir James’s team will not draw' the coach very long : even amongst those who do not oppose him there are occasional growls of distrust at the coachman. Whether they are the expression of individual or more general feeling time alone can show, 1 should i oi; wonder at all if the latter alternative turn out true.

I happened to see a word in a morning print to-day -which set me wondering. It was “Cakobau !” I thought that that absurdity had died out long ago—supplanted by the legitimate “ Thukorahau.” It is wonderful what vitality an error possesses. I may bo forgiven, perhaps, if I explain what possibly some of your readers may not know, especially as I have the information from one of the gentlemen who actually made the Fijian alphabet. When that language was being reduced to Roman letter, the Wesleyan missionaries in Fiji naturally had much discussion over the heat forms to represent Fijian sounds. A hard-headed Scotchman,” who always had queer notions, and could give an unanswerably good reason for every one of them, proposed a now use for the 1 etter “c. ” “ W hat is the good of it at present V” said he. “ Its sibilant sound we represent by “e”; its guttural power by “k”; but we have no character for “th.” Let us, give “c” the force of “ th.” iho good miss onaries did not like it; they had twenty prejudices and not a reason : they fought their colleague day by day, but he, single handed, won the cause by his determined will and his logical powers. And so it comes to pass that to this day in Fijian when you meet with the letter “ c ” it is to be sounded as “ th.” Incidentally, I may add that the final vowels “ au,” in the word under consideration, are not a dipthong—they are to be sounded separately, the “a” like that in bar, and the “u” like “ oo ” in spool. One of the scientific events of the year has just come off, vfz,, the soiree of the Micro scopical Society. To an ordinary—that is a non-micr’oscopical—visitor there was nothing of extreme interest. The President gave an address too technical to be “ uuderstanded of the common people,” and Mr Gibbons gave a very capital little leotnrc on some of the ordinary inhabitants of water— larva, pi'jw', and imagines of beetles, Additional interest was imparted to the demonstration by a comparison of drinking water from the Yan Yean with that supplied to Sydney. The contract between the pictured denizens of these thuds was very marked, and will certainly keep me away from Sydney till they get a better potable for me. Even more interesting than that very lucid exposition was the exhibition by the same gentleman of a number of photographs enlarged by the sciopticon to several powers, the highest being nature x 2100 linear or a little more. Several of these were very beautiful specimens of skill in the management of three different and complex instruments to produce one result —the microscope, the photographic apparatus, and the lantern. Among the objects under microscopes in the rooms were several slides of crystallised gold and crystallised silver, artificially prepared. The bundles of long spicular crystals in both specimens were very beautiful and instructive. Mr Gaunt, optician, of Bourke street, exhioits microscopes and accessories of Victorian manufacture, very creditable to look at, and said to be excellent in performance. The one lens that, I glanced through was Certainly very good, but uniformity in quality aud lowness of price will .be essentials before any, Colonial tradesman can hope to compete with Ross, Pow ell and Lealand, Smith and Beck, 1 and the host of other eminent firms at Home. Mr Gaunt, however, has gone into his enterprise with spirit, and proposes to grind his own lenses, as well as make the mechanical parts of his instruments. ; The scar'et fever outbreak has led to immense activity in the Board of Health. If regulations would stamp out a disease, scarlet fever would have a bad fime of it, and would flee like mist before the sun to some less “ regulated ” portion of th- Queen’s dominions than Victoria. On the othe-- hand rises Dr Thomson, with his clever, quaint, inconclusive letters, and quizzes the public because they “ superstitiously adore drains and worship brimstone.” The substitute he proposes is “a wholesome fear of carried contagion,” which contagion he thinks consists in germs. “Long may life and health” be preserved to us all without either superstitious adoration or wholesome fear ! Amen !