OUR MELBOURNE LETTER.

Evening Star, Issue 4296, 2 December 1876, Page 4

OUR MELBOURNE LETTER.

November 22. We are settling down after the great carnival of racing. The -fiasco of Newminster is no longer the theme of conversation ; the. two Governors have returned to New South' Wales and South Australia respectively ; 1 the crowd of country visitors no longer blocks our streets; and the many minor,' amusements brought temporarily to take ad-: vantage of the rush are dispersed. Parlia-, ment and the “ Vagabond ” almost monopo-; lise public attention. Before I pass to them, however, let me just observe that there are now and then some signs of an unexpected improvement in public ideas about racing. The correspondence between Sir Hercules Robinson and the ‘ Sydney Morning Herald ’ naturally caused a little talk, but though the talk has died away there are now and then hints and allusions which show that current of thought which it indicated still flows on. Now and then a side-stroke in a leaded is aimed at betting, or a disparaging comment in a local on some trivial occurrence, shows that public taste is more fastidious in regard to “ the ring ” and “ the turf ” than for a long time past it has been. I cut the following comments from the Melbourne letter of a country paper the other day. They seem to me to be very true':—“ A remark made by a friend on the Cup day struck me as worth notice. ‘ Why, ’ said he, ‘ this is not amusement; it is business. In my time people used to go to races for the fun, uproar, and recreation; now there is only one object in view—to win money,, ending inevitably by losing it,’ These remarks do apply most forcibly to the Cup day assemblage. Sober, earnest, quiet —the crowd could easily be looked upon as a congregation assembled to hear a great preacher in the open air. There was no drunkenness, no fighting, no fun of the fair, nothing but the intense interest in the winner of the Cup. That that race, and not what is called sport,’ was the sole object of the vast assemblage, was easily seen, for, when it was over, the people rushed away as if the place was plague stricken. ‘lnterest in the noble sport, the national pastime of Englishmen, ’ quotha! Nonsense. I warrant not two thousand would go out to Flemington were it not for the aocursed mania of gambling which has seized the public in connection with horseraciug. There is more genuine fun at the smallest country meeting than there is at this selfsame Flemington. People go to country meetings for pure enjoyment: they go to Flemington as fevered gamblers. Pew there are who go to see the Melbourne Cup, whose hearts do not beat in anticipation of one horse winning, who do not watch the races as in a delirium, ; few there are who do not return from the races crestfallen, apprehensive of the settling day, swearing they will never bet again, only to repeat their folly at the earliest opportunity. So much for a little morality,” The religious public, or a section of it, has been indulging in a little excitement of its own. On the very day of the Cup race, the Sunday School Union began its series of meetings which it calls “The Sunday School week.” These were very good for people who like that kind of work, and finished with a capital meeting in the Atheiueum Hall, where the speeches were not made by clergymen (only think of that!), were very much to the point, and, with one exception, were intolerably long. The exception occupied, as near as I can calculate, six seconds in its delivery, and was most warmly received. It consisted of the following words “ When I have said that I heartily concur ia and gladly second the resolution, I think I have said all that is expected of me at the present time.” I commend this verbatim report to all public men as a model of an effective, neat, and appropriate speech. The General Assembly of the Prsbyterian Church is also contributing its quota to the public news. Its proceedings always attract attention. Not that Victoria can compare with Otago in that respect. I never saw anything in our Assembly to compare with the excitement I have known in yours. But at any rate, Mr Ewing’s case came up. This was an appeal against a decision of the Commission of the Assembly rejecting his application to be admitted as a minister. The rejection was confirmed, and this is the final settlement of the case. Curiously enough, it did not rest on the matter originally in discussion. At first, Mr Ewing’s admission was resisted on the ground that he had been guilty of something in Tasmania. What that something was has never been very clearly explained in Victoria—though, strangely enough, it is known to everybody across the Straits, so it would seem that ill news does not always fly apace—and I suspect that the Assembly was very glad to quit the ground and to base its decision on some other. That other was that in the course of the proceedings Mr Ewing has attempted to deceive the Assembly by a deliberate and wilful falsehood. On such a charge the secular Press will keep silence, whereas had the accused been finally rejected on the original charge there would have been—as there was on the decision from which appeal was made—a general protest against “harsh treatment”—that a locus penitent'm should be afforded, &c., &c. All of which is now cleverly avoided. Mr Fitchett’s case has attracted some notice. Your Young Men’s Christian Association is universally condemned for expelling him. I have not heard a word in their favor, and not even to extenuate their action on the ground of “orthodoxy,” The idea seems to be that they have given up being a “ Christian” society in order to mark themselves more emphatically as an AntiEvolution Society, I hardly know whether water in the shape of steam or water as a beverage is causing more excitement in Parliament just now. Railways and the Publicans Bill divide opinion about equally. The Bill to authorise the construction of new railways covers a great many undertakings, the cost of which is to be defrayed by the new loan of L 1,200,000. Considering that every hamlet in the place vaunts its claims as paramount to every other city, town, or village, it is rather difficult to satisfy everybody, and viewed from that point the Ministers have succeeded very well. Only a few towns are really raising opposition.'..Belfast is one of these; it complains that a line proposed to be made from Warrnambool inland ought to have been from Belfast inland. Now, Warrnambool is Sir James M'Culloch’s constituency, so you may imagine that charges of corruption, &c., are Hying about his ears thicker than raindrops. Kilmore is another source of grumbling, and it really does look like a bard case that it has no railway and is to have none. But lam told that the real reason is the engineering difficulties. The purchase of the Hobson's Bay Railway is another matter causing fierce discussion. The directors and the Government have settled the terms, and it only requires the assent of Parliament to the Bill in which those terms are embodied, to make the transaction complete. The foul accusations arising out of this matter are even worse than those springing out of the Construction Bid. A Geelong paper actually declares that the definite sum of LIOO,OOO is to be divided amongst exactly five people for managing the sale. Even names were mentioned by other slanderers. I need hardly say that there is not a particle of evidence to sustain the allegations. But I may remark that Mr Berry lives at Geelong, and is proprietor, £c., of a newspaper.

As for the liquid water it acts in the shape of teetotalism, and makes' as big fools of those amiable people as alcohol does of its slaves. Who would ever dream of a congress of publicans in a Temperam e Hall? Yet it is asserted that the Temperance Society asked the publicans to meet them there to organise such an opposition to the new Licensing Bill as should abolish the grocer’s license. The teetotallers strenuously deny the alleged convention, but events confirm it. The grocer’s license has been struck out by the Assembly; but lam convinced that it is merely a stroke of “ bunkum”—that if the Bill ever reaches the Upper House the grocer’s license will there be quietly restored, the alteration will be silently assented to by the Lower House, and the members will all during the recess trumpet forth their love of virtue, their desire to suppress the wicked grocer’s license, and the iniquity of the Council in undoing their work. Then they ■will buy bottles of brandy —at the grocer’s, of couise, for it is 50 per , cent, cheaper and many hundreds per cent, better in quality than the publican’s article —and consume it in toasts to the success of “humbug gener-ally,” as the ‘Biglow ! Papers’ land it. How the teetotal members will justify their action to their own consciences 1 cannot imagine, for they cannot even solace their consciences with grocer- : bought brandy. True, there is tea— but, : medically, tea is not, 1 believe, an anodyne. I have a long and amusing story to tell about the “Vagabond” and the Alfred •Hospital—how he sojourned, how he observed, how he wrote, how he wgs attacked, ;and how the contest goes on. But it is too good to come in at the tail of a letter, so 1 Preserve it for the place of honor in my next, i The new “ Academy of Music” has been opened. De Murska was the great attraction. In truth there was hardly any other except novelty and the pretty furniture. 'The orchestral and other artistic support to the primA donna were miserably “ pinched ” monetarily. The Arcade was formally ‘opened by the Mayor at four o’clock to-day.