MELBOURNE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 153, 10 December 1853, Page 8

MELBOURNE.

We extract from recent Melbourne journals sundry items of interest. The report from the different gold fields is favourable, The diggers, now that the license fee is satisfactorily settled, are setting- to work in right earnest, and an increased yield this season is confidently looked forward to as the result. The quantity received by escort during the last twelve days exceeds 42,000 ozs., exclusive of what came down by private hand, and 10,000 ozs. taken to Adelaide. The price is stationary at £3 16s. J In the Legislative Council several important questions on which will hinge much of the future^ well being of the Colony are now under consideration, such as the settlement of the gold license, and, paramount to all, the framing of a Constitution adapted to our present wants, and worthy the nascent greatness of this embryo empire. The claims of Mr. ETargraves, and with it that of those who first discovered gold in this Colony, is under consideration, and is likely to be treated in a liberal spirit by the House. Compared with the state of affairs twelve months ago, our social condition, as regards security, in general, to life and property, is much improved; but drunkenness is fearfully on the increase, and as a necessary consequence crimes of a heinous nature are of frequent occurrence. Coal has turned up, in workable abundance, and of first-rate quality. The specimen exhibited is a large mass of the best coal, and has all the appearance of having been picked off the surface being coated with moss, The locality is kept a secret by the discovers, but there is strong reason to suspect that Western Port is the spot; and as a proof of this, the gentleman who possesses the whole frontage to Western Port, has refused an offer of £120 an acre for his land, although he purchased it only a few weeks since at 255. or 30s. an acre. The papers furnish full details of a fire which occured in Collins-street, the first of that series of conflagrations which everybody seems to anticipate as inevitable. The masses of wretched wooden buildings which deface our best streets are as rotten and dry as touchwood; and another " Black Thursday " would infallibly set them a-blaze. In the present instance the loss is very considerable—greater than the papers estimate ; at least business men in that quarter say that goods to the value of £70,000 or £80,000 must have been consumed in the large new store of Messrs. Hart. It is odd enough that this firm should have been burned out before, and the consequence of the double disaster is that uncharitable human nature will give currency to sinister rumours. As to the buildings themselves, every person is glad they are, gone and are only sorry that the whole corner is not swept away. The paltry hovels were a great eyesore,, and they stood on ground that was sold months ago for £250 a foot. The Argus thus depicts the general state oi drunkenness existing at present. " Several things conspire just at present io justify us in giving distinct expressions to opinions which we. have now for some time held, upon the subject of the awful drunkenness which pervades the whole Colony ot Victoria. Next week the Council will enter upon the consideration of the estimates for next yea , in which £900,000 is calculated to be den™ from the duties upon spirits alone, ow

after the question of the extension of authorised spirit-selling to the various gold fields will come on for consideration. And within the last few days several petitions have been laid upon the table of the House, numerously signed, In favour of the enactment of the far-famed Maine Law, for the prevention of the sale of intoxicating liquors altogether. These and other things pointing towards the same subject, lead to a particular propriety in the present time being selected, to call the serious attention of every good man in the colony to the universal prevalence of the bestial and ruinous vice of drunkenness. We believe there can be no reasonable doubt that we are the most drunken people in the world. Scotland has lately earned an unenviable notoriety in that respect, but the consumption per head here is vastly larger than in Scotland; and such are the effects of the climate that it is well kuown that the same quantity of spirits produces in Australia something like triple the effect that it does in the colder climate of Scotland. So that the amount of drunkenness ought to be estimated at three times per gallon in one country what it is in the other. In a paper just laid upon the Council table, the amount of duty upon spirits is estimated at £900,000, which, at 10s. per gallon, would yield 1,800,000 gallons; and, dividing this amongst a population of 300,000, we find an average of six gallons per head, or two and. a half times more than in Scotland. Again, let us triple the effects by the influence of the climate, and we should find that drunkenness prevails in Victoria over that iv Scotland in the proportion of seven and a half to one ! The details of this horrible vice obtrude themselves fully and frequently enough. No one can walk the streets, or ride into the outskirts, without noticing an extent of the most frightful drunkenness, which would be incredible if not actually witnessed. Men lie littering about on all sides, in a condition more degrading than that of the lowest brutes. In carts, upon drays, on horseback ; or wherever else they may be packed, so constantly are scenes of the most disgusting excess brought \inder observation, that it seems as if the whole population had turned drunkards together. The silence of the streets at night is disturbed, their bustle during the day is disgraced, by the obscene shouts of intoxication, by the quarrels of men and woman furious with drink. The tap-rooms which swarm on all sides resound with cries and songs of drunken revelry, and the whole land reeks with this debasing and brutal vice. We have for some time come to the conclusion, that the period has arrived when spirits should be a proscribed article in Victoria. We believe that they should be hunted out wherever theycan be found, andspiltupon the ground without mercy and without delay, Iv merchant's store, in licensed house, in sly-grog tent, they should be ferretted out like an odious pest, and instantly destroyed. When a whole people has allowed itself to sink into so deep a sin, it is necessary tor those who still retain some habits of self-control, to assist those Who do not; and to step in between them and perdition. We are no teetotallers, either in practice or precept. We believe that all the good gifts of Providence were given for man's service, and that it savours of ingratitude to exclude those who can duly use them from the enjoyment of a large class of the luxuries so benevolently sent us. And even now it is against spirits alone that we would recommend the war of extermination. They are an article, the use of winch is unsuited to the country and the climate ; and therefore we ought to place (hem beyond the reach of the more ignorant classes, «uo_cannot enter physiologically into their ""suitableness. Let such people still have *"»e and beer. They will occasionally get omnk even upon these, but to nothing like the extent to which they do now upon alcohol in s more concentrated form. A light wine is "c natural beverage for climates like this, <«tt till we supply it ourselves, or get it from Adelaide or Sydney, we should be glad to see a itP f- risin S" UP in that article with France, tt imiing to teach her the value of commercial jn ercliange with Britain and its dependencies. men lUS are so sudden in t»eir effects, and till nßf l SC\ rea(!lly intoxicated upon them, that foeii 1 tastes liave bjul time t0 assimilate '"selves to local circumstances, we believe

that the law ought to proscribe their use altogether. It will be urged in opposition to our proposal that it is very hard that the man who can make a good use of an accustomed luxury should have to forego it, because his next neighbour is a besotted beast. It is hard, doubtless, but it is the case, more or less, with all the laws. Each man living in regularly organized society gives up a portion of his natural liberty for the general good, and for the safety and propriety thereby produced. And in this case, when we view the insignificance of the sacrifice required, and the magnitude of the object to be obtained, we pity the man who would not feel a positive gratification in making an offering of so trifling a personal indulgence in the good cause of the welfare of the people.