MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2525, 15 September 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

fh-nOM Ol'lt O\V\ COHIIKSI;OXI)KST.|

An editnri-il friend of mine has civ.n Melbourne a new name. He calls it ''The city of the three s'.-.''-slice's, strikes, mid syndicates." He says its streets are big, its syndicates me liii.'yi-r still, but its strike* are biggest o , all. And I think ho is net far wrong. Just at present, what between these two latter, the place is in that enviable portion known as being " between the devil and the deep sea." Strikes seem to lie looming on all sides. Carpenters, irnnmoulders, builders, seamon, are all on the verge of going out; whilst overshadowing them all comes the Newcastle, emhrnylbi, which threatens Melbourne perhaps more than any other place. A nice state of affairs truly, and one that does not make the outlook pleasant. Already the Gas Company that supplies the whole of Melbourne has reduced the pressure of gas one-half, making it anything but agreeable for the evening domestic circle. And this is only the h'rst herald, as it were, of the. visitation. We have the prospect of factories having to stop, trains ceasing to run, trains laid up, milighted streets, and other horrors of a like nature.

We householders are already feelii the pinch, and all the more as gas-stov have been generally adopted for cookhi Besides putting only half pressure, tl Gas Company has commenced to u inferior coal, and my wife informed n this morning with dismay that it took h over fifty minutes to boil the mati.tin kettle on the gas-stove. Fiirthermor there are more hardships to put up witi Coal has suddenly popped up from 2.") a ton to over 50s. Wood for firps h: risen threepence to fonrpence a c\v Kerosene ia steadily advancing in priei and even candles are higher. I myse fancy, that before anything really serioi occurs, the strike will be over; but the; things I mentioned are pleasant herak of the " might be." Nothing is safe now-adays from tli iconoclastic hands of the nineteent century utilitarians. The poor ban holiday—sacred festival of clerks and a business men—is being attacked mos viciously by the associated banks, whe not content with lowering the rate c interest on deposits, and tightening tliei finaucial grip generally, want to put a embargo on the bank holiday privilege It will surprise my readers to learn tha in Victoria in 'S7 no fewer than 600 ban! holidays were proclaimed in differen parts of the colony. Now they are re stricted, and to be under the snpervisioi of the associated banks here I pity th poor country bank clerk clone out of lii cherished, if frequent holiday, and think too that if the associated bank prove to be as stingy with their holiday: as they are with their salaries, thei employees will not have a bed of roses. The author of the " Pirates of Penzanoe " nnist have been wrong when hi wrote "a policeman's lot ia not a happj one," or at all events it doesn't apply U Victoria, according to what the Com missioner of Police told me at the Inhibition last Saturday. _ "We liar vacancies for about eighty in the Force,' lie said to me whilst listening to Cowen'i music, "and over five hundred nativeborn men applied at the St. Kildabarracks Young Australia seems to like the 'Foorce." It does indeed after that, although it offers but a poor career, to m> mind. The pay to commence is only sis and sixpence a day, and promotion is slow ami uncertain. I suppose the uniform counts for something, but I think it is a pity so many promising young men should regard being in the police force as the siimmuiii bonum of human existence.