Such is my first introduction to Melbourne. It is evidently a place stirring with life. After strolling through some of the larger streets, and everywhere observing the same indications of wealth, and traffic, and population, I took the train for Sandridge, and slept a good sound sleep in my bunk on board the 'Yorkshire' for the last time.
Next morning I returned to Melbourne in the broad daylight, when I was able to make a more deliberate survey of the city. I was struck by the width and regularity of some of the larger streets, and by the admirable manner in which they are paved and kept. The whole town seems to have been laid out on a systematic plan, which some might think even too regular and uniform. But the undulating nature of the ground on which the city is built serves to correct this defect, if defect it be.
The streets are mostly laid out at right angles; broad streets one way, and alternate broad and narrow streets crossing them. Collins and Bourke Streets are, perhaps, the finest. The view from the high ground, at one end of Collins Street, looking down the hollow of the road, and right away up the hill on the other side, is very striking. This grand street, of great width, is probably not less than a mile long. On either side are the principal bank buildings, tall and handsome. Just a little way up the hill, on the further side, is a magnificent white palace-like structure, with a richly ornamented façade and tower. That is the New Town Hall. Higher up is a fine church spire, and beyond it a red brick tower, pricked out with yellow, standing in bold relief against the clear blue sky. You can just see Bourke and Wills' monument there, in the centre of the roadway. And at the very end of the perspective, the handsome grey front of the Treasury bounds the view.
Amongst the peculiarities of the Melbourne streets are the deep, broad stone gutters, on either side of the roadway, evidently intended for the passage of a very large quantity of water in the rainy season. They are so broad as to render it necessary to throw little wooden bridges over them at the street-crossings. I was told that these open gutters are considered by no means promotive of the health of the inhabitants, which one can readily believe; and it is probable that before long they will be covered up.
Walk over Collins and Bourke Street at nine or ten in the morning, and you meet the business men of Melbourne on their way from the railway-station to their offices in town: for the greater number of them, as in London, live in the suburbs. The shops are all open, everything looking bright and clean. Pass along the same streets in the afternoon, and you will find gaily-dressed ladies flocking the pathways. The shops are bustling with customers. There are many private carriages to be seen, with two-wheeled cars, on which the passengers sit back to back, these (with the omnibuses) being the public conveyances of Melbourne. Collins Street may be regarded as the favourite promenade; more particularly between three and four in the afternoon, when shopping is merely the excuse of its numerous fashionable frequenters.
One thing struck me especially—the very few old or grey-haired people one meets with in the streets of Melbourne. They are mostly young people; and there are comparatively few who have got beyond the middle stage of life. And no wonder. For how young a city Melbourne is! Forty years since there was not a house in the place.
Where the Melbourne University now stands, a few miserable Australian blacks would meet and hold a corroboree; but, except it might be a refugee bush-ranger from Sydney, there was not a white man in all Victoria. The first settler, John Batman,[3] arrived in the harbour of Port Phillip as recently as the year 1835, since which time the colony has been planted, the city of Melbourne has been built, and Victoria covered with farms, mines, towns, and people. When Sir Thomas Mitchell first visited the colony in 1836, though comprehending an area of more than a hundred thousand square miles, it did not contain 200 white people. In 1845 the population had grown to 32,000; Melbourne had been founded, and was beginning to grow rapidly; now it contains a population of about 200,000 souls, and is already the greatest city in the Southern Hemisphere.
No wonder, therefore, that the population of Melbourne should be young. It consists for the most part of immigrants from Great Britain and other countries,—of men and women in the prime of life,—pushing, enterprising, energetic people. Nor is the stream of immigration likely to stop soon. The land in the interior is not one-tenth part occupied; and "the cry is, still they come." Indeed many think the immigrants do not come quickly enough. Every ship brings a fresh batch; and the "new chums" may be readily known, as they assemble in knots at the corners of the streets, by their ruddy colour, their gaping curiosity, and their home looks.
Another thing that strikes me in Melbourne is this,—that I have not seen a beggar in the place. There is work for everybody who will work; so there is no excuse for begging. A great many young fellows who come out here no doubt do not meet with the fortune they think they deserve. They expected that a few good letters of introduction were all that was necessary to enable them to succeed. But they are soon undeceived. They must strip to work, if they would do any good. Mere clerks, who can write and add up figures, are of no use; the colony is over-stocked with them. But if they are handy, ready to work, and willing to turn their hand to anything, they need never be without the means of honest living.
In many respects Melbourne is very like home. It looks like a slice of England transplanted here, only everything looks fresher and newer. Go into Fitzroy or Carlton Gardens in the morning, and you will see almost the self-same nurses and children that you saw in the Parks in London. At dusk you see the same sort of courting couples mooning about, not knowing what next to say. In the streets you see a corps of rifle volunteers marching along, just as at home, on Saturday afternoons. Down at Sandridge you see the cheap-trip steamer, decked with flags, taking a boat-load of excursionists down the bay to some Australian Margate or Ramsgate. On the wooden pier the same steam-cranes are at work, loading and unloading trucks.