FROM GISBORNE TO MELBOURNE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1164, 2 October 1882, Page 2

FROM GISBORNE TO MELBOURNE.

WRITTEN FOR THE POVERTY BAY STANDARD. No. XVll.— (Conclusion). HOBARTON (Continued). There are also five flour mills, six jam, and one woollen factory in the town, besides numerous tanneries ; and the port proper boasts of three patent slips, capable of repairing large-sized vessels. The town is governed by a Mayor and nine aidermen, is lighted by gas, and plentifully supplied with water, principally coming from springs at Mount Wellington, running into a reservoir, whose capacity is over fifty million gallons. Personal and other sanitary considerations, on behalf of the populace, have weighed with the local movers in these matters, and Hobarton, consequently, has a Bathing Society, with equally good accommodation for ladies and gentlemen. There is, also, a noticeable innovation to the general tame monotony of most streets in our English and Colonial towns, and one which, I am glad to see, is in other places growing into daily favor, and that is the planting and conservation of trees in public places. In the centre of the town a bronze statue has been erected to the memory of Sir John Franklin, formerly Governor of Tasmania. This is enclosed in a pleasantly situated garden, planted with ornamental and sheltering trees, and provided with seats for the use of the weary who wish to be at rest. There are two daily newspapers, one weekly, and five monthly, issued in Hobart. In the course of conversation I found that many of my own impressions, at first sight, were in the main correct. The real business of the town may be said to be confined to the production of the two staples—fruit and jam. Of pleasure there is literally none, or seldom any, in the shape of public amusement. The theatre is but indifferently patronised at the best; the consequence is, that, unless a man has a residential coterie of his own, and can stay at home, and enjoy himself, he must go to bed, play billiards, or “do the block.” Now I had, as usual, my eye open for the beautiful in the human form divine, as well as in other things ; and I had noticed the singular absence of women in Hobart’s streets. “Where are the lovely Tasmanian girls, of whom we hear so much ?”said to my fellow-passenger. Quoth he “ I suppose it is hardly time for them to sally on to the ‘ block ’ at 3on a not summer day but we did not know what “ doing the block ” in Hobart was then ; and when we were told, we regretted that, at the hour of our coming departure, the “ belles” would be

“hurrying to and fro, “Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam.” As a matter of fact (but whether from taste or inclination I know not) it appears that the Hobarton ladies do not take their exercise until the shades of evening arc drawing to a close. This, of course, will largely account for the comparative bareness and empty-looking appearance of the best thoroughfares, in the daytime, which is quite the reverse to your New Zealand towns, and of Melbourne, where ladies only of a “certain class” perambulate the streets after dark. Like Melbourne, Hobarton has but one “ block,” so called from the fact that four of its principal streets, forming a square, contain the handsomest shops, and offer the greatest business and gossiping attractions to those of the gentler sex who are quest of either one or the other. But, unlike Melbourne, Hobarton disgorges its battalions of females, of all ages, sizes, and degrees, into the open air, ostensibly, and actually, for ought I know, for the enjoyment of physical exercise, during the hours of “ twilight,” so my informant said. The remarkable feature in this queer custom is its almost phenomenal aspect, in that a gentlemen is hardly ever to be seen with these bevies of ladies. They, the ladies, promenade in detachments of from two to half a dozen, but it is yet a moot point whether they do so from a sehse of being a mutual protection to each other, or for the sake of each other’s company ; at any rate it is quite a rare occurrence to see an “ unprotected female” walking alone; and an enthusiastic figuiist asserted that from calculations he had made, there were generally a dozen ladies to one gentleman on these occasions, although I beg leave to doubt such an aspersion, either on the gallantry of the sterner sex, or the good taste of the gentler. In nearly all the other towns I visited I was able, as well as pleased, to have ocular demonstration of what feminine beauty they possessed; but as I was debarred that felicity in Hobarton, I give you the opinion of a friend, who entered upon the subject, so evidently for the mere love of the thing, that I can rely upon its truth. He said he was “satisfied” in regard to the personal charms of the Tasmanian ladies, They comgare favorably with those of any other olony; “their complexions are fresher, tbeir features more regular, and their forms more erect.” In dress, however, he did not think they exhibited much taste. Why should they, when they show their plumage only to the moon ? And, perhaps, an austere cestheticism had something to do witii it, but this was not suggested, by the speaker, who rather concluded that, probably, they thought Nature had been bountiful enough to them, to afford to dispense with superfluous adornment. I dare say there were exceptions to this pilgrim style of plainness ; but that would only prove the rule, that the celebrity of the Tasmanian ladies is not built up on the visionary fancies, and emptyheaded vanities of most of their compeers in the sister Colonies. I was fortunate enough to meet with some gentlemen who were very enthusiastic in their praises of Tasmania ; one of them giving mo a very vivid description of a visit he made to Launceston ; and the other day I came across the following endorsement of his impressions. In writing of the route from Hobart to Launceston, he says:— “There are many pretty, and a few grand, views, to be obtained along this route, but perhaps the most pleasant of all are the numberless farms adjacent to the line, where the land has been brought into the most advanced state of cultivation. Nowhere in the colonies have I seen so much that reminded me of the beautiful cornfields in the old country’ In fact, Tasmania, on account of its salubrious climate, is undoubtedly more English in its characteristics than any of the other colonies. Launceston is somewhat of a quiet old place, but its surroundings are very beautiful, and the Tamar is , exceedingly picturesque. The road running from the side of the river affords one of the prettiest drives or vcalks imaginable, and the view from the bridge, looking towards the falls on the one side, and tracing the tortuous , course of the river on the other, is scarcely equalled by anything I saw in the colony. 1 There are not many well-known pleasure ! resorts here, such as are to be found around | Hobart, but Cora Linn well deserves a 1

visit on account of its pieturesqueiiess. Indeed, it may justly be said, that Launceston is the place for‘business and Hobart for pleasure.” The foregoing fully corroborates my own view with regard to “'the business aspect of Hobart. Speaking generally, I should say that this beautiful island must be a charming place to live in, and especially in the summer months, for it is not au exagcration of fact, that sometimes, even at that season of the year, artificial warmth is nor only pleasant but desirable, such as change of raiment and coal fires in the month of January. This affords great contrast to Sydney or Melbourne (and I suppose those places pretty well indicate the rest of the continent), in which the heat is —according to a now defunct New Zealand northerner —something damnable. The hospiva’ity and genial unostentatious companionableness of the Tasmaninas are proverbial, and their efforts to make sojourners amongst them happy, ever end in sending their visitors away with a good feeling towards society generally, and with pleasant recollections of their visit to this “ beautiful isle of the sea.” For myself, 1 give iny unfettered decision in its favor—ont of New Zealand, for therein lam prejudiced. And to those who wish to cast their lines in pleasant places, I unhesitatingly say go to Tasmania.

We left the wharf about five in the ever ing, and were in smooth water during our 30 hours’ (trip to Melbourne. Nothing occurred during this time to make any particular note of, except that during the fine weather that followed on the dismal days between the Bluff and Hobart, we nearly all expressed a wish that we could extend ourvoy age in the good ship Te Anau. As I wished to stick to the steamer until we reached the wharf, I did not accept the opportunity of going ashore at Williamstown with the mails. Besides, I wanted to see what the river Yarra was like, for I had heard of it only as a place of stinks, and receptacle for dead men's and women’s bones—a verification of both of which I have since been personal witness. I shall not describe this sluice of liquid slush—this tidal canal (for it is not a river) of carbonized putrefaction—this veritable Styx, that runs, with all its bi-diumal filthiness, betwixt hell and earth—for I conceive there is no state of a man's stomach, between the hours of sleep, capable of resisting the regurgitating effect which a perusal of the actual state of this “death pond” would have. If your subscribers read of it before maals, they would lose their appetites, and would have to visit Page’s for a “bitters;” then their wives would get angry, and their dinners cold. If they deferred the pleasure —will, then either Mr Stubbs would have to prescribe for something ranging between the dyspeptic region, and the biliary duct; or Dr. Pollen would be puzzled as to his diagnosis. “Query,” says he, meditatingly, “which is it? Liver, too much bitters, or ? Ah, well, I’ll treat him for the latter, that is the more likely complaint, ami the medicine more harmless.” The patient takes the physic ; he would be ill, of course—l don't mean in consequence of taking it—and sorry, thereafter, that he ever read a graphic description of the Melbourne river Yarra. No ! I shall spare your readers’sensitiveness, for I know what it is to suffer olfactorily, but if ever they pay a visit to the grandest metropolis in the southern hemisphere, they may remember what little has been foreshadowed respecting this greatest and foulest blots (of all the great and foul blots) on Melbourne’s escutcheon—if it has one—by a writer of the letters “ From Gisborne to Melbourne,” in the Year of Grace 1882. Lector Renevole, Adieu !