THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH. IN MELBOURNE.

West Coast Times, Issue 695, 16 December 1867, Page 4

THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH. IN MELBOURNE.

(feom the argtts.) THE FREE BANQUET. The free banquet in honor of the Prince of Alfred's visit, respecting the preparations for which so many accounts have been publishod, took place on Thursday, at the Zoological gardens, adjoining Yarra Park (better known by its time-honored designation of Richmond Paddock) . The history of the whole affair has been very remarkable. The first idea was to give a feast to the poor while his Royal Highness was with us ; but it soon swelled into the granderproposition of regaling by thousands instea of hundreds, and inviting all the people of Melbourne as guests. There was something so daring and original in the motion that it was quickly seized, and, in true Victorian fashion, carried out with an energy and determination that demand universal admiration. A general committee — subsequently divided into sections — was formed on the most popular basis, and its members, almost to a man, threw themselves into the movement with fer- . vid enthusiasm, With them no work was too oppressive, no task too difficult, no personal sacrifice too great , and the prosperous portion of the public to whom they appealed, catching tneir fire, poured in contributions as thick as hail. Meat, bread, vegetables, wine, beer, eatables of every description, and. money besides, were profusely provided ; a vast store of utensils were given or lent ; personal assistance was freely promised and rendered ; and finally, the Prince was to come and see it all. So thoroughly was the project supported that the City Council voted LIOO, and the Reception Commission Ll5O to the funds. Lady MannersSutton gave the affair her personal and special patronage, and some of the gifts of goods were of princely sort. Notably we' may mention that three gentlemen (vignerons), Messrs G. W. Knight, J. P. Bear, and R. Adams, contributed 600 gallons of wine ; and Mr E. Wild, of the Collingwood Brewery, a proportionably enormous quantity of ale. That these fair expectations should be falsified, and I that such brilliant success should only lead to a disastrous defeat, was very hard, and yet we have to record that this free banquet has proved one of the most tremendous and utter failures we have ever known. Many visible signs in Melbourne forenoon life on Thursday indicated that there was going to be a rush to the banquet. , The streets were unusually full of welldressed women and children, cabmen by the hundred touted for paasengers to the gardens ; the trains thither were crowded, and ran at short intervals ; and the stream of street traffic tended in the same direction. The committee had rather expected this, and their preparations were on a colossal scale. Their supposition was that there would be 10,000 to feast and 10,000 spectators, and with tables 'which would accommodate over 3000 at a time, they saw their way to please every one. Thoy were g". assly deceived. The good folks of Melbourne had chosen to entertain a:i idea v<.ry different fiom theirs., and legarded the thing as a sort of monstrous picnic to which every one wes invited. Coaso uer.ily, the women and children, to whom such a tiling was particularly acceptable, sn armed thither by tenshudiens of thousands. It was of no u-e that the committee had over and over agnin explained ibat lhe banquet v.as really for the poor, who were not to be disgraced by beins called so. The female public mind had fitrured to itself countless stores of good things to eat and drink waiting for consumers, and out of all those who were at the gardens on Thursday, fully two-thirds were, as we have said, women and children. Onehalf belonged to a station .in life which i almost forbad their presence on the j ground except as the merest spectators, and nineteen-twentieths were of a class entirely removed from any need of eleemosynary assistance. Nevertheless, as the sequel will show, the visitors came with a fixed intention of partaking of the good things, and in unexampled numbers. So large a crowd never assembled in Victoria before. Perhaps there were as many in the streets on the night of the illuminations, but they were broken and divided, Here, in the Zoolological Gardens, was one vast mass of human beings, variously estimated at from 60,000 to 100,000. Our own opinion is that the numbers were somewhat between 50,000 and 60,000. At noon the gardens contained many thousand persons, and others were pouring in from all parts. The committee had a sort of programme, in which the order of the proceeding stood thus: — The banquet was to begin at one o'clock, and at the same time the wine and beer were to be distributed. It was moreover supposed that the Prince would only come in a sort of non-official way, go round the gardens, drink a glass of wine, and make nis exit. But these arrangements were disturbed — first, by the Reception Commission consenting at the last moment to lend the Royal pavilion, erected for the reception of the Prince at the Treasury, and sending a staff of workmen, under the competent superintendence of Mr Todd, travelling inspector of public works, to help in putting it up ; and secondly by an urgent request from Mr M'Culloch that the banquet might be delayed till two o'clock, as the Prince had j to visit the National Agricultural Show. The consequence was that things were altered to suit these new conditions. The other arrangements of the committee seemed good enough. There was a large carving tent ; nearly half a mile of tables, draped and festooned with greenery, in the open air ; other tents for various purposes, including a retiring-room for the Duke ; two wine fountains — one raised high aloft and worked by a syphon pump, and another communicating with, a.500gallon vat, also raised on a staging to a considerable height. Besides, there were the pavilion and dais, from whence a staging led to the smaller fountain. Round the receptacles for the wine were stout barriers, composed of a semicircular row of tables laden with eatables, and bearing also a pipe pierced for some fifty taps, through which the wine was to run for the multitude. Then there was an extensive cooking apparatus, being in fact the same, enlarged, with which Mr Grimwood, who had undertaken to cook the victuals on this occasion, did such wonders in cooking for the million at the last Sunbury encampment. There was also a roped dancing arena, which however, we believe, was never used. Everything was neat and effici< nt in its way, and all looked the better because of their tasteful adornments of shrub's and flowers. By one o'clock the tables, guarded by policemen, were ready for the feast, and beyond some trifling work connected with the dais, there was nothing for anyone to do but to wait for the Prince to declare the banquet open, and himself hoist the feilken ensign which had been worked and presented by s< -•-' ladies for this event.

But by this time the crowd had reached vast proportions, and thousands and thousands more were coining every mhmtr. The pavilion and the tables round the wine receptacles were, for some reason or other, the main centre of attraction, and the people pressed round very hard. There were on the grouud 250 policemen, who with their officers — Mr Superintendent Lyttelton, and Inspectors Hare, B. t*mith, and Dobson — exerted themselves most actively ; but the crowd was far too great for them, reaching in fact to most unmanageable proportions. The day was fearfully hot and. dusty, the dust increasing as the sward was cut up by *the many feet, and those crowding round, wedged in their places by those behind and all unable to move, grew fearfully thirsty. Fortunately this had been anticipated; there was plenty of water, jugs, and tumblers, and grumbling was appeased for a while. But as the time advanced the crowd grew denser and denser, and there were many misgivings that the barriers would not last long. The fears were prophetic. At twenty minutes to two the first barrier gave way, but a rush of policemen and carpenters remedied the mischief for awhile, and then matters were made ready for the Prince's arrival. Twenty young ladies in white and blue were introduced to present the flag to His Royal Highness, committeemen put ! on their gloves, the dais was cleared, Mr W. C. Weekes — who was to present an address signed by Mr L. L. Smith, chairman of the committee, welcoming the Prince in the name of the people — walked nervously about the dais, the active marshal, Mr A. L. Gardner, rode hurriedly up and down the avenue cleared by the mounted police for the Prince's carriage, and there was a general fidget of expectation. Much reason existed for ' this anxiety that His Royal Highness should practice the courtesy of princes, and be punctual. The crowd was already enormous, and increasing, and people getting too hungry to be nice about forms, might go beyond the bounds of good manners. Still the Prince did not come, and as time advanced, so did the barriers steadily yield, and the people press in upon the pavilion. At half-past two the famished mob could hold out no longer, the long tables were rushed, and in a few seconds there was not a vestige of all the vast store of provisions under which the boards had groaned. At the pavilion, the tables had long since been rifled of all their contents, and the people steadily pushed in closer and closer. It is probable that had the Prince come at two o'clock all might have gone off comparatively well ; but had he come later, the consequences would certainly have been most serious, and probably fatal. The crowd was not composed of the ordinary materials, but of tender women and cLildren, pressed and wedged by men of more strength than courtesy. Many fainted, more shrieked for water, and, but for prompt attention, much hmvi would have accrued. L. false report that the Prince had come, created by the arrival of some officers of the Galatea, greatly enhanced the pressure, and the ladies, who I stoocl wailing v, ith their flag, wero forced to conu 1 on Use dais, and line its sid<'S. TKreo o'clock name, expectation grew intense, and. witli the va^t majority, hunger was unsa'isfied; but still no Prince. Then the committee adopted a sudden resolution — they would not wait for the Pr'nce, but declare the place open, and hoist the banner. The chairman (Mr L. L. iSmith) announced that this would be done, and the banner was hois Led, amid loud cheers for the ladies who made it. In a minute or two it was said the Prince was coming, and the banner was accordingly pulled down ; but this time there waa a message from Captain Standish, Chief Commissioner of Police, that the Prince would not be there at all. Loud cries were set up for " Wine," and Mr Smith said that it had been decided to give no wine away now, but reserve it for the poor. This excited the popular wrath. The cries of " Wine" increased. Some ruffian threw an egg into the pavilion, bespattering and spoiling a poor little girl's hat, and further discontent was very freely expressed. However, the pressure of the crowd relaxed, and people were soon enabled to move. We have learned that the Prince and the Governor did come within a few hundred yards of the gardens at three o'clock ; but that at that point some one stopped the carriage to communicate with his Excelledcy, and, after a short consultation, the horses were turned and driven down the Richmond road towards Toorak.

A short walk about the gardens, threading the crowd which choked the place, soon showed what sort of a struggle there had been for the victuals. Loaves bodabbled in mud, and joints with only half the meat cut away and covered with dust, lay here and there. Boys catching hold of fresh loaves, tore them to pieces like wolves ; utensils — save drinking-cups, which were in demand, were pitched about here and there. The prevailing thirst was so great that men went round with buckets of water, selling it at a penny a cupful, and children were sucking at hose-pipes. The long row of barrels of ale had been rapidly disposed of by the simple process of beating in the heads of the casks, and dripping out the liquor in the readiest way. Of course three-fourths of the liquor was wasted, but that made no difference to those whose desire was to get beer in any fashion. In the tent appropriated to the committee there were a few cases of porter and champagne, and some of the former were opened for the x*efreshment of the police. This got abroad, and a mob soon collected. Cases of champagne were then pulled away from under the folds of the tent, and the purloiners could not be caught every time. At last, as every one foresaw, there was a grand rush, and the tent was pulled down over the ears of the committee, and most of the contents appropriated as "loot" long before the police could interfere. About the same time an attack was made upon the large wine vat, which was most inefficiently guarded. How one of the spigots was got out was not clear, but out it came, the wine drenching those round about. One of the donors of the wine was by, and he jumped up a ladder to draw out another spigot,- and get the liquor drained off and wasted as t soon as possible, but he could not succeed, and meanwhile the crowd brought every description of xitcnsil in which to catch the precious fluid. The other stock of 100 gallons soon shared the same fate, and for nearly an hour wine was pouring out thus, and being drunk as fast as possible. The expected consequenefs followed, and v.ilhin a brief space a few hundreds of drunken men and boys were reeling through the crowd, not actually behaving badly for intoxicated people, but introducing an indescribably rowdy element into the proceedings. At last the liquor «as all gone, and then the police took their opportunity, and commenced to clear the place. Half the crowd had departed

before, and now the remainder soon quietly followed.

Thus ended an affair which has produced a disagreeable impression on the minds of all who were there not soon to bo effaced, 'lhe sentiment of enjoyment was entirely absent, and all was confusion, hunger, thirst, and bitter complaints against the committe for misniangeinent. In. these last remarks the unpunctuality and non-ariival of the Prince were strongly commented upon. The fact was, that the numbers were far greater than the committee anticipated ; their precautionary measures were by no means sufficient; and their ill-judged retention of the wine excited feeling to a high pitch. It must be admitted by everyone that, considering the enormous number of people present, they behaved themselves exceedingly well, and the absence of the " roughs," so common in English crowds, was most marked. It is doubtful if any similar assemblage in the world would have behaved so well- The committee say that the Reception Committee or the Government, having gone so far with the affair, ought to have gone further, and provided a guard for the Prince, who need not then have turned back. In any case, however, it was certain from the beginning that the project, assuming the shape it did, must end in failure ; or the vast majority of the public could never be made to regard the banquet in any other light than they did. It is doubtful if, after the experience of Thursday, this generation of Victorians will see another free banquet in Melbourne.

Cobb's Coach arrived from Christchurch, on Saturday afternoon, shortly before three o'clock. The passengers were Mr Bastard, booked all through, and two -waysiders. The rivers were reported to be low.

The " Lyttelton Times" says :—": — " A man named Alexander Baxter, an old sailor, and formerly keeper of the Kaiapoi Ferry, has been missing since Monday evening. It appears that Baxter, who lives on the South bank of the Waimakariri, about a mile and a half below Kaiapoi, left the Pier Hotel on the evening in question somewhat intoxicated, and was afterwards seen as late as nine o'clock in his boat, as if going home. The boat in which Alexander Baxter, who has been missing since Monday, was last seen in on the river, and one paddle, have been found on the South Spit of the Kaiapoi bar. There can now be no doubfc but that he must have fallen asleep in ibis boat, which drifted on to the bar, and there capsized.