MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2567, 22 December 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

(k'UOM OUR OWN" CORRESPONDENT.)

TnERE has been nothing else talked of in town all week but the drought, the hot weather, and the dismal outlook of things generally. The continued absence of rain is making everybody look sombre, mm what with it and other predisposing causes, it looks as if we are going to have a very bad time of it in Melbourne. Should the drought continue, its effects will reach all classes of the community, and will be severely felt by the poorer folks. The long-wished for rain may come in time to prevent a total failure of the crops, and I sincerely trust it will; but it will now be too late (if it comes) to make the harvest even a partially suecesful one. "Onminy events cast their shadows before," and u. day or two ago the suiburban bakers decided to raise the price of bread to 7d—an advance of Id. per loaf. I have heard it stated, too that before long, unless the weather breaks, it will reach Is., and of course the price of meat and other necessaries will also rise correspondingly in value. This is really and truly a dismal contingency, and I pray it may never come to pass. But if it comes to it, I verily believe it will prove a blessing in disguise. It will teach the farmer and the agriculturist that it is bad business to simply court Nature's blessings when he may command them. And further, when the Melbourne householder comes to pay a shilling a loaf for bread a month or two hence, and Heaven knows how much for other vegetable products, he will be convinced then that he has a greater interest in promoting irrigation and improving agriculture than he thought for. Experience is a bitter draught and I think we in Melbonrne are about to take ours neat. We have already been undergoing a certain direct penalty in the hot weather. The Spring has been unusually brief, and Summer has come upon U3 with a fierce heat such as is not commonly felt until February. Friday, for instance, was a day the temperature of which has only been exceeded once in this period of the year since records have been taken. It went up to 102 deg. in the shade, and was accompanied by a baking north wind that mado existence a burthen. As usual, too, the water supply proved wofully deficient, and many of the suburbs were almost cut off entirely for the whole of the day. This ie how one of our Melbourne scribes dolivers himsolf regarding tho day—for grotesque irreverence I have seldom seen it equalled. "At ono time I feared that the tropical section of the Hereafter had eprung a leak, and that the liquid was falling upon the Australian portion of this sun-smitten, sin-saturated, eorrowsoaked sphere." T3 mo, who have lived in various other large cities of tho world, it is simply marvellous that the threo hundred thousand fouls who call Molbourne their?, consent to pnt up with tho appaling municipal mismanagement that obtains here. No sooner comes the time when (to quote poor Gordon),

With £re and drought on her tresses, Insatiable summer oppresses, no sooner comes the heat but the water supply fails. It is absolutely disgraceful. And every year it is the same. The suburbs, where most of the people dwell, get cut off, and one returns home after the heat and toil of the day, panting for a bath, to find not a drop of water in the house. And inind you, we have inexhaustible supplies within tapping distance of the city. Is it not shocking ! I only wonder people put up with it. Then there is a sewerage and drainage system. No civilised city in the wide world has such au abominable system (or rather, no-system) as Melbourne. The disgusting odors of the place, and the noisome details that face us at every step, are more abominable than I care to write about. No wonder our death rate is so terribly high. Disease stalkb broadest ; sanitation is an empty phrase here. We spend thousands upon thousands in vain shows and outward luxuries, and this—the safeguard of the public health the very corner-stone of physical and moral purity—is thrust aside uncared for and unthought of. Everybody has been railing against the scorching north winds we have been having, but if it were not for them and their power of drying up putrefaction and destroying disease germs. Melbourne would be one great pest-house—one vast lazar-house —for tho promulgation of all kinds of hideous zymotic diseases. But we have other things too to make us downcast in town. Bad times nre nhead of us, an r l everything augurs a depressed New Year. The " Year of Booms" is drawiug to a close, and the handwriting is on tho wall. I augured as much at the first start of the silvor boom. That collapsed suddenly, and then sprang up a greater—the land boom, the bottom is out ol that now, and Melbourne has to face the direful results of over speculation. I hear awful stories of the depreciation of suburban propertiescity properties remaining pretty firm. One member of Parliament I know told me he is sacrificing- £20,000 deposit money rather than complete his bargains and make himself further liable. Everybody has speculated moro or less ; and now tho reaction has come, the wail is general and loud. Seven men within tho last week have told me tht-y nro completely ruined ; they cannot meet their payments, and cveM-y'.hing becomes forfeited. Nnw that tiling me goinir crooked, many of tho<o who fostered the goneral mania and who have been the prime movers in it, nro commencing to quarrel, and wo shall havo land-jobber after lnnd-jobber, syndicate after syndi cate airiajf iheir grievances in the lawcourts. Already we have been treated to soma disgraceful disclosures, and the highest and most prominent in the city are mixed up in them. But ah ! it is au unsavriurv subject and I'll have no more of it.

However, as I am on this 6ubjeotof sinful Melbourne, I will go on to another aspect of it. The papers shew us that a regular epidemic of horrors is upon us. It is growing nomewhut more than serious. Murder and suicide, suicide and murder, follow each other with nlsirminjt rapidity, and the ordinary newspaper reader is constantly kept on the tiptoe of direful expectation. I don't ever remember reading about so much violence before. I counted six suicide cases last week. There is somehow a feeling of horror in the air, hideously fostered by the continued telegrams we read of the fiendish acts of that Whitechnpel monster who calls himself "Jack the Ripper." I don't remember ever seeing the generality of people so moved by an outside causo as ie the case with these murders. They are the general topic of conversation among the men all day long in the clubs, restaurants, and hotels. One hears little else just now. Merciful heavens! that such things should bo. In all the records of horrible crimes there has been nothing to equal them. Can the awful murderer be human at all, or some hideous monster let loose to wreak vengeance on sin and ahame ? In Melbourne, though of course ■we havo had nothing to parallel this, there have been of late far too many contributions to the general stock of crimes, and I pray from my heart that the epidemic will be speedily wiped out. I find I havo gone on in such a morbid strain that T am afraid my letter will not be found very entertaining reading thie week, and I must apologise for its dismal tone. I am glad therefore, to end up with something of a more elevating character. I wrote a week or two back about the liberal manner in which many of our prominent men responded to the call to subscribe towards the wiping off of the flebt of £10,000 on the Melbourne Hospital. The debt wa3 soon liquidated by voluntary subscriptions, and now it is proposed to do the same for all the charitable institations of the colony outside the city. Their total indebtedness is a little over £17,000, nml I hear a regular crusade is to lie initiated to r:\ise funds tn pny thin amount. Country hospitals are equally deserving as city ones, and 1 hope the good work will prosper. All

my readers can aid in this,, and doubtless will ; for all districts will equally benefit, and the movements will be almost a national one. Again I wish it snecesa, and hope when the time comes my renders will not be backward in giving. Adios !