Old-time Echoes

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 7, 13 May 1893, Page 7

Old-time Echoes

MELBOURNE IN THE EARLY DAYS. The Melbourne Argus publishes a report of an extremely interesting interview which one of its reporters has had with the venerable Dean of Melbourne, who lately entered upon his ninety-fifth year. He remembers perfectly being, when a child, in the company of his great great grandmother, who was born in 1709, thus constituting a link of only two lives connecting the present epoch with the reign of Queen Anne. When, Dean Macartney was born in Ireland at the close of last century the horrors of the French Revolution were' upon every tongue. He thinks great or terrible events made more impression on the public- mind in those days. “We did not forget things as rapidly then,” he remarked to the reporter. When Waterloo was fought Dean Macartney was a youth seventeen or eighteen years of age. An exchange thus summarises some of the Dean’s reminiscences : Dean Macartney arrived in Victoria in 1848. Collins and Bourke streets then really constituted Melbourne; the gaol was entirely out of the town, and Mr Macartney could not understand how the building then called the Treasury, which occupied the site of the Four Courts, could be considered as forming part of Melbourne. The streets were in a dreadful condition, and vehicles were often stuck fast even in Collins street. One respectable farmer who lived oit beyond what is now Hawthorn, informed the Dean that he went into town one day with a load of wood and a team of bullocks, and before he returned had £l3 in his pockets, realised by the sale of the firewood and the numerous fees earned by his team in extricating bogged vehicles from the perils of the principal Melbourne thoroughfare. On the gold fever Dean Macartney evidently looks back with feelings not altogether of gratification. Only by a dispensation which he regards as providential was his household enabled to procure any domestic service at all, and for months there was a stable in his garden which he was utterly unable to g’et cleaned out. On one night he believes there was only a single policeman left in Melbourne, and he personally encountered sick people in the hotels of the town who were left absolutely without, any attendance. The Dean recounts how rough bearded men in blue and red shirts, with leatherbelts and trousers, the material of which w'as thoroughly concealed by layers of soil, would come to him for marriage licenses. But on the day of the ceremony, to his astonishment, “ a figure utterly transformed would present itself. A bridegroom, trimly shaven, with oiled hair, wearing white satin waistcoat, patent leather shoes, and jewellery galore, would hand into a magnificent equipage a lady dressed in even more resplendent fashion. Only the glimpse of wrist accidentally displayed between sleeve and glove would betray the fact that the bride’s acquaintance with soap and water was not particularly intimate.” As regards the toilettes, says the Dean, they 'were in good taste, and irreproachable. There was nothing fantastic about the finery, because the services of qualified milliners were employed.