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Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 249, 7 November 1872, Page 5

language— a living lie; The Otago system of Government instruction is as superior to the system carried out in Victoria, as the sun is to a farthing rushlight ; and I attribute all the chief virtues of your admirable system" to the indefatigable skill and experience of Mr John Hislop, your never-failing Inspector of. Schools, who, I know, finds a most able dblleague in Mr Wm. Taylor, your SubInspector. Let no one leave Otago to better themselves in Victoria. Ye are well off, and, perhaps, don't know it. Melbourne streets teem with fallen women seeking the wages of sin. The factory boys— called " larrikins "—prowl about' in twenties, and duck even policemen in the tanks opposite hotels, with impunity. Stabbing takes place in open day, and burglaries are so common that a man the other day, who caught a housebreaker "m the very act," actually invited the robber to take a glass of wine. As for genteel thefts, forgeries, shop-lifting, passing bad money, &c, they are so common that such events would, if recorded, require a newspaper all to themselves.

The new School Act provides for compulsary teaching, but no fees to be taken at the door. There has been a terrible battle over the Bill ; but in committee the Catholic members were silent, seeing that further opposition was useless. It is rumored that Mr Duffy will soon make tracks for Europe. The Royal Theatre will open late in November. It will be a great improvement on the old Boyal. The new Arcade (No. 2) will be open by Christmas. The first one, the i property of the Hon. Howard • v penslay, is a great success. At the new. Prince of Wales Theatre, Mrs Mary Gladstone, the wife of tbe manager, Mr Uaylee, and herself the directress, is the bright particular star, performs historical and modern sensation plays. She engaged your obedient servant to write a formal account of the opening of the said theatre for the Era. Roberts and his wife Polly Leake, and Collier, are playing very old dramas, put together with very new effects, and the houses are crowded. • The new Prince of Wales Theatre is very pretty to look at, but architecturally is defective, as those who sit in the pit and those who sit in the back seats of the circle

can scarcely see or hear at all. One of the most pleasing characteristics of Melbourne is that wherever a tree can be planted judi-

ciously it is there planted, hence we have a large variety of very shady and pretty gardens, avemues, and passages, wherever there is the slighest excuse for their existence. There has been for. a long time a terrible chronic fray going on between Baron Mueller and Mr Ferguson, both of the Botanic Gardens, which are certainly.no credit as garden■ers, whatever may be their scientific worth, to a city like Melbourne, and this is the very fault that the public find with the "Botanic," namely, that botanically they may scientifically be most perfect-, but as specimens of creditable landscape gardening they are complete failures, to which I -say ditto, although I don't know a hollyhock from a fuschia.

And now good-bye for the present. I know you are an amiable man, but editors, are but human, and compositors are but men. I write an execrable scrawl, which wonld jmzzle a Philadelphia lawyer. I ■would wi9h to be back with my many kind — very kind — old Otago friends, from whom, I got more practical kindly recognition in six years than I got from Victoria in nine years. By anticipation I wish you and all my kind friends a merry Christmas and- a happy New Year." Be sure to remember me to the ladies of Dunedin.

M. W. S.