OUR MELBOURNE LETTER.

Evening Star, Issue 4261, 23 October 1876, Page 4

OUR MELBOURNE LETTER.

October 11. {= I left off at the Melbourne Athenaeum D ballet, and I may as well resume at that a point. The Sunday opening was negatived * by a small majority. The anti-Sunday s people were much chagrined, but said very * fittfe. How much they felt their defeat may * be guessed from two canards which they put <j in circulation to account for it. The first * was that they had not cawvassed for votes, a whilst their opponents were highly organised e . and almost supernaturally active. The B second was that every single individual of * the five hundred who did not poll was on ' their side. Anyone who knows anything of ( human affairs can estimate the exact worth * •f the latter statement. Concerning the ' former, I need merely say that the Sunday 3 opening party comprise three or four men well known to be the best electioneers in 1 the town. The laßt committee meeting of « the institute was a treat. The solicitors 1 sent in their bill of costs for certain profes- l sional work. One of the firm is a member : of the committee, and strongly opposed Sunday opening. AMr Jeremiah Dwyer, a i barrister of no particular mark, urged that ' the bill should not be paid because the soli- ' oitor had thus acted. So much for the mental calibre of one of the partj. For the i rest, it may suffice to say that the majority, if not all of them, are interested in a speculation to build a new public-house, under the thin disguise of a " Club-honse" next door to the Athenseum. It was broadly stated and as flatly contradicted that if the Sunday opening scheme had succeeded the next step was to be the opening of a doorway between the two buildings. There is no rule without its exceptions. "Between two stools one comes to the ground" is generally true, but the Athenreum between its two stools flourishes delightfully. Each side canvasses for new members with zeal, and all pay up at once, in order to secure a vote three months hence, when the election of committee takes place. We have had no lack of amusements. The Davenports gave a series of entertainments, but ruined their chances of a great • success by their idiotic policy. Spiritualism and common sense were their two stools, and between these, if they did not exactly come io the ground, they at least lost a good deal of money. They evidently wanted to claim credit for spiritualistic aid, and yet shrank from the loss of custom that avowal or claim ef it would entail—perhaps certain ignominious expulsions from American towns have lived in their memories. Of course the Fakir of Oolu imitated them and outshone them very soon ; they also had several amateur imitators who succeeded a, merveiUe. So exit Davenport Brothers, leaving a general impression that my acquaintance Faber expressed thus : " It's the dullest affair to sit , out two hours and a half that ever I saw. I would not go again if I were paid my five shillings to see it." The new attraction is a big circus. A tent certainly the largest ever seen here has been put up between Flinders street and the Hobson's Bay railway, close to the site of the old waterworks, and all the walls in town blaze with pictures—American fashion. A new feature in advertising makes its appearance on them. Each g'cture has pasted on it a small bill conveyg a polite request from the manager that the public will not deface the advertisement. Of the performance I cannot as yet give a report, but am told it iB very unequal—some feats being first-rate. In a very different line we hav3 just had a treat. Mdlle. Claus gave a series of farewell concerts. lam ashamed to say that the audiences all put together could easily have been put at one time into the Town Hall, where the concerts were given. But Mdlle. Ctaus played as well as if the place had been crowded, and the applause was genuine. The admirers of vocal music are all gone raving after Costa's "Eli"—l cannot conceive why. It has been done twice lately by a special choir, under Herr Herz, and there is an agitation to reproduce it again. Pleasing enough the music certainly is at first hearing, but there is no genius in it, and the tricks by which mediocrity attempts to supply what lacks not only pall but they soon disgust. The' newspaper critics have " gushed " over the thing as if Costa were a Beethoven or a Mendelssohn. (Shades of the great dead forgive the irreverent juxtaposition !) But as for newspaper criticism here it really seems to be degenerating very rapidly. I was very much struck with this on looking at the ' Melbourne Review' for this month. Mnch praise has been lavished on certain things therein that do not appear to me to deserve it. I will not'mate any political report. The House seems tired of squabbling, and is really at work, Dona eis requiem; and if aternam, why nobody will be the worse.