MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2540, 20 October 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

FROM OUR OWN COKRKSPOXDEST.) Town has been unusually quiet clurina the last week. I think the reason is that " The tethered hope of Spring''— as I have seen it poetically described somewhere—is holding us all in check. Certainly the weather has been most obnoxious ; what a friend of mine called " Piebald weather. Black with rain and white with dust." Such really are the pleasant alternations we have been having, aud we are beginning to sigh for a fairer prospect, and very naturally too. Spring is generally a very delightful season in Melbourne, but tins one lias opened inauspiciously, and the days as yet have either been too hot or too cold. As a natural result of chr.ugeahleuess, there is a great amount of sickness about and the death rate is high. Diphtheria, the most liendish of all zymotic diseases, lias been rampant, especially among children, and I am truly sorry to see its dreadful presence has made itself felt in the country districts too. Jlorrtsca ref'erem .' I can write with feeling about it, for within the last month I have seen two young lives, near and dear struck down and strangled by it. Talking of the weather reminds me of my friend the Government Astronomer, Mr Ellery, and thinking of him makes me recollect a letter he showed me from Mr Cosmo Newberry, whom all Australia knows as the head of our Technological Museum. Mr Newberry has always been one of the most popular men in Melbourne, and his great scientific attainments and position in the Public Service made him widely and deservedly known throughout the whole of the colonies. He was one of the injured in the late terrible Windsor railway accident, and indeed was so shattered that for some time his life was despaired of. However, ho went home to recover, but according to the letter referred to above, I learn his health continues to be so unsatisfactory as to compel him to apply for an extension of have of absence from the Museum. Of course this will be granted, and I can only sav that I fervently hope, among thousands of other well-wishers, that Cosmo may soon be fully restored to health and strength. He will be greatly missed at the Exhibition as well as at the Museum ; for had he been in Melbourne he would have discharged the same duties which he fulfilled at the International Exhibition of 'SO—that of Chairman of Juries. His locum tenuis is Mr Bosisto, the member, a man who has pushed himself from the ranks, and who is shrewd enough, but who does not possess one-fifth the aplomb, the ability, the tact tb.3 mvoir fairs, or the refinement of Mr Cosmo Newberry. I propheoied in one of my letters a, month or two back, that our Governor's term of office would be extended, and now I am glad to be able to say that such is actually the case He has had another yeartackod on to the five our Governors generally enjoy, and has consequently some twenty-one months still of gubernatorial eminence among us. We are all gratified at the fact, because Sir Henry ami Lady Loch arc both justly respected, admired, and loved. Going back, I find Sir Henry Barkly, Viscount Canterbury, aud Sir George Bowen, were the only three lengthened. They were all popular in the extreme, and, as in the case of Sir Henry, the prolongation of their rule was distinctly due to the general wish that they should remain. I am glad the Lochs have had this mark of honour and respect shewn them, for they are really good people, kindly, courteous, useful, charitable and refined ; and they have elevated Government House and Government circles to a status they have never previously attained, but which in future must of necessity be kept up by their successors. We have lately received in Melbourne copies of young Fergus Hume's new" shilling shocker," "Madame Mias." lam grievously disappointed with the novel, for it is such nfmrayo of murders, nbdno tions, poisonings, and villainies generally as to be anything but elevating reading at all. I should not like to see young ladies I know reading it, for it deals with matters which are generally left alone by young people. I daresay the book will find a groat sale out here all the same, for it is highly sensational. The chief character is a certain arch-villain, a New Caledonian rccidiewtc and escape named Gaston Vandeloup, and it is concerning his unwholesome doings that this novel is chiefly about. He murders, robs, leads a young girl astray, and acts the villain generally in the airiest and most nonchalant manner, and is finally drowned in the Yarra. Fergus writes from Loudon that the first edition was sold in a week, and further orders for thirty odd thousand received at the same time ; and I am glad of it for his sake, though I must confess to being dissappointed that he ; should so drag his name in the dirt by writing such stuff. The whole circumstance of the success of the " Mystery of a Hansom Cab," and this second book, however, is a proof of what push and energy can do. A young man named Trischler, formerly an employe 1 of William Icglis and Co, a firm of Melbourne ' publishers who went insolvent, being out , of employment, took the " My3tery " up, floated a small company here to publish it, and took it to Loudon. To him in ! reality is owing the success of the work and he has rather startled some of the ; mouldy old English publishing firms with Australian push and enterprise. Last Saturday saw what is practically the close of the football season. Now j the followeia of the arduous game go into .retirement to accumulate a fair amount of adipose tissue to be worked off in the season of '89. The game has been wonderfully popular right throughout the ! season,"and at some of the best matches ' it was nothing to see twenty or thirty thousand spectators watching the game. According to the record of daring deeds now done, South Melbourne comes in an easy first, followed by Geelong. Williamstown follows, and Carlton—so long ( the Premier—only comes in fourth. Cricket now will shortly usurp the , public attention, and already creases are beiug prepared, grass cut, and rollers at work. I must confess, quant a mui, I; j prefer the lusty, robust football to the ( genteeler cricket, and many a Saturday afternoon have I spent iu watching ] brawny young Australia following the i leather. A propoa of cricket, I was told a few days ago that some Melbourne young ladies intend following the example ■ set them by the English girls, and are going in for a cricket club and grounds of ( their own. It will be a decided novelty ( for the colonies, a lady's cricket club, but ( I see no reason whatever why " our girls " should not go in for the noble game ; equally as well as " our boys." (

This sounds very much like competition between ths sexes ; but even if it is so, Melbourne is truly the home of competition. And to what extent the facile minds of land-boomers alone can know. These gentlemen seem to have exhausted the ordinary modes of advertising, and now take fresh departures. One of the latest dodgc3 takes the shape of boxes of safety matehes, with the date, place and full particulars of a land sale printed thereon. Then we have novels distributed gratuitously, wherein the hero and heroine, after many adventures, end happily by purchasing an allotment in such-and-such an estate, and live there gloriously ever after. Then we have land-sale prizes and cups at races, landsale prize poems, and oh, bathos ! landsale songs set to music. I should not bo surprised to see a balloon ascent advertised as an attraction to some sale or other.