MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2570, 29 December 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

MELBOURNE GOSSIP.

(t'ROJI OUIJ OWN C'OKKKSI'ONDKN'T.)

Amono the passengers to England by the 1\ and 0, s. s. " Kallarat," which left Melbourne last Friday, was Mr, George Clarke, " the Christian athlete,'' who had been conducting bis farewell series of evangelistic mission services in the Town Hall. During the mission the large building was crowded in every available part, scores of people standing in the approaches and passages, whilst hundreds went away disappointed at the opportunity of hearing this most popular teacher. When the whole vast audience united their voices in the melody of some wellknown hymn, the volume of sound was enoui'll to lift, oil the beautiful ceiling of the Town Hall. Mr. Clarke, l.y his wonderful energy, by the indefinable magnetism of his earnestness, and by the candour of his style had fairly won his way to the hearts of the people, and his ministrations have, no doubt, accomplished very much good indeed, lie had succeeded in \ciy materially aiding tinfunds of two deserving institutions, the Young Mens' and the Young Woinens' Christian Associations, and his influence has markedly worked for good in many kindred directions as well. He left Melbourne amid the heartfelt regrets of thousands. lam inclinded to agree with "The Vagabond" that far more good is likely to accrue to Australia from the " Colin-

deries," which took place in Loddon a

couple of years ago, than from our own Centennial Exhibition. The first was held—so to speak—under the very noses of the British Public, wheras the present show has its locule in a comparatively obscure, and certainly a remote portion of the globe. In order to convey the extent of onr resources to the minds of the inhabitants of Europe it is necessary that the samples of our productions should be displayed in their own countries, and not here in Australia. I would suggest that the exhibits to bo forwarded by the various colonies to the Paris Exhibition next year, should at its c!o3o be shown for, say, a month in Berlin, Vienna, Brussels, &c, as well as in London, Glasgow and Dublin, where suitable buildings could readily be obtained for a few weeks in each city. Such a course would open the eyes of capitalists, and would tend to increase the prosperity and progress of the colonies.

The elder D'lsraeli covered his reputation with a sick sort of phosphoric glory by his book, called •' Curiosities of Literature." There isa better and bigger and sicker book to be written, called " The Misfortunes of Literateurs." Take the very latest and most pathetic iu stance : Mr Earnest Favenc, a very capable writer and explorer, states in a recent Argus article, descriptive of North Western Australia—" To this mountain we gave the name of ' The Vagabond,' after the gentle Julian." Subsequently Mr Favenc describes the mountain in question as the " Vagabond bluff." Significant, or sly, or sarcastic—which ?

Now that the racing carnival season is over aud we have time for reflection 1 would like to say a few words with regard to the dreaming of winners of the Melbourne Cup. Mr. Craig, the well-known hotelkeeper of Ballarat, who in IS7O dreamt that his horse Nimblefoot would wiD, his jockey wearing a piece of crape around his arm. The horse did win, but Mr. Craig himself had died before the event, and it was in his memory that the crape was worn. There have been many remarkable dreamings of winners since then, some of which have come offrightly, and the most wrongly. Without being superstitious there are many who believe that there is a good deal in dreams, and there are some thoughts, as Cliphaz the Ramauite said, " from the visions of the night, when deep sleep fallethupon mer." which are entitled to serious attention. Galen declared that he owed most of his knowledge to communications received in dreams ; Hernias wrote his " Shepherd" as he tells us, at the dictation of a voice heard in sleep ; the calamities which were to befall Cnesus, King of Lydia, were predicted to him in a dream ; C-vlplinrnia, the lady who was the wife of Julius Cicsar, and expected to be above suspicion dreamed that she held her husband's murdered corpse in her arms the night before the ancient senators" did for'' the second best noblest Roman of them all in the Forum : and Monica, tho mother of St. Augustine, was admonished in her «leep that her son would be converted from the giddy mau-about-town life ho was leading, and so he was. Beyond all doubt the men of old were pretty great on dreams, but the level-headed Cicero doesn't seem to have put much faith iu them, for he observes shrewdly that "we hear a good deal about the dreams that come true, but very little about those that prove untrue." Most people dream every night in the year about something or another, and it would therfore be surprising if they did not hit on a true dream once iu a way. He- must be a precious bad marksman who shoots at a target from one year's end to another without scoring a bullseye once.

The sensation of the week lias been the very mysterious death of a young woman named Funny Perry, who has been in the employ of Mr. G-. B. XV. Lewis, once a well-known theatrical manager, as general servant. The girl was missed from her room one morning, and all enquires as to her whereabouts proved entirely resultless, untill last F.-iday an extremely strong and nauseous smell emanating from an outhouse adjoining Mr. Lewis' premises prompted a search. Here, upon a mass of old scenery and theatrical properties which had been stored in the shed, were, nfter some difficulty had been experienced in reaching them, found the dicomposing remains of the unfortunate creature. How she reached the place where the body Vus found, how, having got there, she met with her death, and what were the motives which led to her seeking this lonely seclusion, are all. with many more oircumstances surrounding the ease wrapped in impenetrable mystery. The post mortem examination shows the girl to have been in noway tampered with, and, while sho had a sweetheart, there has been nothing disclosed in regrd to their relationship to iudicate that any question of blighted, crossed, or crooked love enters into the explanation of the mystery. The girl is said to have had a share in some land on which she wished to realise, but which she was not permitted to do, and this disappointment is the only cogent reason for the suicide— if suicide it be. Perhaps the inquest will throw light on the matter. I