MELBOURNE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 53, 27 January 1872, Page 3

MELBOURNE.

(From an American Wool-buyer's point of vieio.) FIRST OF A SERIES OF PAPEES TO BE HEAD AT THE COOPEE INSTITUTE, NEW YORK. Fellow-Citizens, —I have been to Australia, and I have returned. I have been on a mission, and that mission was w 001—32 cent wool. I have got that wool—a good deal of it. They let us have it; trust them for that. A. big boss there in the wool trade said he didn't particularly want to sell it to us, but as we were evidently bent on getting it, and offered good money for it, he let us have it, " so that there should be no unpleasant feeling or animosity between the two great continents of Australia and America." My senior partner, I know, will swear a few when I tell him this, and express a wish our Melbourne friend hadn't been so confoundedly sentimental. There are serious misimpressions abroad here about Australia, encouraged, I think, by the missionaries who have preceded us. The inhabitants of Melbourne, where we lived mostly, are not black. Emphatically not. Indeed, there are a lot of particularly white men there I could name, but I want to avoid being inviduous. I have brought a trunkful of photographs with me, in case my assertion should be disputed. Nor do they eat each'olher now—at least, not while we were there. They had better food to eat, and a balance to export. I. don't think it worth our while sending any more such missionaries there. The people are quite civilised enough. For our part, we may have thought before our arrival that, living as they do at the antipodes, they might not know very much. We hadn't been there a day, fellow-citizens, when it dawned on us this was an error, and before we were there a week we could see they were " up to the whole bag of tricks." There are two kinds of colonists—old colonists and other colonists. The old colonists get very drunk once a year—on the Ist July, the anniversary of their separation from New South Wales, and the commencement of the separate existence of Victoria, which, before 1851, wag simply the district of Port Phillip. The other colonists take their liquor freely on that day also, and on numberless other occasions. The old colonists are a very estimable lot of fellows. The others are fast following in their footsteps. They are a hospitable people the citizens of Melbourne, but I think they drink too much, and I told them so one night, very late, after dinner. We intended at first, by our example, to endeavor to restrain them in some degree to this respect, and to implant, if possible, habits of self-control amongst them ; but, on reflection, we decided that such conduct on our part would be liable to be construed as presumptuous, as an interference, so to speak, at once unwarrantable and impertinent, with what appeared to be a " domestic institution." We, therefore, concluded to take our " tots" like the others. We did so. They can't complain of us. We drank very fair. Embedded in this community we found a score or so of old Yanks. They had been there from fifteen to eighteen years. They have not deteriorated very much. They have introduced " props," can oysters, baking powder, and John Collins there, and other means of alleviating the tedium of antipodean existence. They are not fossilised, but on the contrary, lively. Most of them are beloved, and some even respected. Victoria is a great gold-producing colony, but we noticed the list of calls in the Melbourne " Argus" each morning was always outrageously out of proportion in length to the list of dividends. In this respect Victoria is not singular. That it is a pastoral evidenced by the wool we have brought with us, as also by the sheep's trotters and mutton broth, of which we were in no way stinted where we resided. There are also hot winds there, preserved meats, protection, and excellent colonial wines and beer. We could have had as much of the latter beverages as we chose to drink, morning, noon, and night—for, as I said before, they are hospitable people ; but we noticed they never drank them themselves, so we refrained from indulging.

Talking of protection, they have a treasurer there we ought to import. The framer of our tariff is a fool to him. The man who fixed the low wool duty limits at 32 cents can't hold a candle to him. His name is Berry— Graham Berry. Mr Secretary Boutwell should have him over quick, because he must die young, being veryclever. He is a teetotaller, but I have seen him intoxicated. Don't misunderstand me. It was on the occasion of a review of the local naval forces, when he was so inflated with his importance as War Minister as to lose his mental balance. Some people get tight—through vanity—this way, and some through liquor. I think the latter is the more honest way. It is the best for trade, I prefer it. If we had him over, and put him in a place proportioned for his merits, he would keep steady. He would never have cause to be taken that way.

There are five principal hotels in Melbourne Menzie's Hotel, Scott's Hotel, the Port Phillip Club Hotel, Tankard's Temperance Hotel, and Wintle's Hotel. We did not try either of the latter two. The other three are first-rate, though it is difficult to get anything to drink in one of them after 12 o'clock at night. Wintle does not run his hotel now. He is deceased ; but he was popular in his way, and his name is still kept up same as with the Astor House here. It is an exclusive place, and the rules about drinks are still more stringent than in the other hotel we have adverted to. They don't allow any, either before or after 12, except, indeed, in the event of you're going to be hung, when they relax a little—the rules, 1 mean.

There are severe penalties for selling liquors on Sundays, consequently we always got twice as much on that day as on any other. Travellers and lodgers have privileges. At a wayside hostelry kept by a downey old chap, we saw on the mantelshelf this ticket—

" Beds 6d. A deposit of the sum requested." You put down—if it be Sunday—Gd besides the card, and immediately a nobler (the local name for a tot) is put down also. You need not tell them as you go away not to trouble much about airing your bed. They would not put themselves out much about it. This is a wrinkle for a thirsty Maine man. I am compelled to the conclusion that God originally made these colonists upright, but, like ourselves, they have sought out many inventions.

The two principle streets in Melbourne are Collins street and Bourke street. They are both exactly the same width and length, but white bats are 5 dol in Collins street and 4= dol only in Bourke street. Menzie's Hotel is in the latter, Scott's in the former, also Bourke and Wills' Monument. This momento is for the benefit of future travellers. Menzie's Hotel is in an elevated position ; the streets slope up to it either way, but the gradient, though it appears serious when you are coming home late at night, is really not worth speaking of. Some nights it appeared really mountainous. Snakes abound in Victoria, also snake stories in the newspapers in the summer time. They are very dangerous —often fatal. Of course I don't mean the newspapers or the stories. We never, however, saw any snakes. There . are none in Bourke street or Collins street, though a man who had been speculating unsuccessfully in Sandhurst stocks told us we would find plenty " under the verandah." We avoided that place. In conclusion, fellow-citizens, I will fondly treasure while life lasts the memories of our visit to this isolated but not inexperienced people. They are members of the same great AngloSaxon family as we are, and our mother tongue is theirs. We cheerfully caste our lot in with them during the months we sojourned there, and contributed, to the best of our several abilities, to alleviate their position; aud proud I am to think that we havehad another opportunity of participating in their anxieties and sharing their privations in their distant homes, on the margin of an untamed and almost untrodden continent.