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Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5101, 23 May 1885, Page 3

As you steam np the Yarra you can s?e that Melbourne is an immense city, but to get even a faint idea cf its extent you must spend at least several days wandering through it and its suburbs. To a " new chum" at travelling, like royaelf, it seems almost intreditable that a population more than half as large as all New Zealand should be centred within a circle of about eight or nine miles ; but when. I ■walkthrough the streets, or, better still, mount a hill from which a pood view can be obtained, and gaze upon row after row of houses, stretching for miles around, incredulity gives place to wonder as to how Mich a Tast number, managed to live. Melbourne is a great city, already,, and is destined to be a still greater. On every tide it is expanding; new suburbs are springing np, as old ones become joined to the cily, and everywhere either new buildings are in course of erection, or old ones are being pulled down to make room for larger and better. To give an adequate idea of the size of the city to those whoso experience does not extend beyond Auckland and the Thames is impossible—l simply advise all such to pay it a visit; they will not be disappointed with their trip. The business part of the city lies chiefly in a broad valley, where great warehouses, hotels, banks,' shops, and

/" >. churches are packed as thickly together IJF as it is possible. The city is well laid out, til the main streets and footpaths being very wide, and regularly divided into squares. The great warehouses, banks, and offices are found in Flinders and Collins Btreets, wbil.e for general business the principal thoroughfare in Bourke street. Here of an evening, especially of aSatur day, thousands of people are to be seen, while the arcades and markets are thronged tip to a late hour. The market on this evening ib one of the Bights of the town, and Cole's book arcade, where you have literally a million books to choose from, is another. But to detail the prominent buildings would but weary my readers, though if any of them follow in my footSteps I would recommend them not to miss visiting the Law courts, exhibition buildings, museum, public library, and the Town Hall acd theatres. Another thing which eanDot fail to strike a newcomer is the amount of vehicular traffic. - Hundreds of busses, cabs, and handsome, not to speak of drays, and waggons, are to be seen along.Flinders, Swanston, and Bourke streets at any time of the day. There are no trams in the city yet, the tramways are only just being laid, but the bus and cab fare being,only 3d (for which you can travel from three to four miles) nearly everyone rides. A novelty of paving has been introduced here, several streets being paved with small blocks of wood, set on end. The method is expensive, but it appears to answer well, and lessens the noise of the traffic. ; Melbourne would to a casual observer appear to be a religious place; church ipires are seen towering everywhere, and less pretentious places of worship are met frith at almost every turn, while the Sunday air is made melodious with the chimes of the bells, but one has only to walk Bonrke street after ten any evening or Little Bourke street any time of the day or night, to discover that there is a shady aide of life here as elsewhere, and to see flagrant vice and immorality as at times it crops out in the Police Courts, or is animadverted upon occasionally in tbe columns of the daily-papers. ( To be Continued*)