Chapter Ix. Old Melbourne Described
CHAPTER IX. OLD MELBOURNE DESCRIBED. 1840—1843. SYNOPSIS:—Difficulties of Pedcstrianism—Early Legal Difficulties.—The Queen's Wharf—Solar Perplexities.—First Public Clock.—Early Letter-carriers. —Tardy Mail-deliveries.—First Burial Ground.—A Threatened Famine.—Early Mercantile Firms.—Jewish Residents.—Population of Colony in 1840-1.—Nocturnal Outrages.—Bill of Wants.—Sir Gcor«e Gipps' Visit.—•" Kiteflying."—The Unemployed.—Street Procession.—Open-air Demonstration.—Population of the Town. —First Executions of Criminals. —Commercial Depression.—Mr. Wentworth.—First Boiling-down Establishments.—Revival of Trade. PERSON now standing on the summit of Parliament House, and looking at the city spreading its wings, fan-like in every direction—its steeples, domes, and edifices glinting in the sunlight—the people, like bees, buzzing and busying about—the vehicles of every description, tram cars, and other evidences of active li'e thronging the streets—the whinnying and whistling of the "iron horse" as he rushes through the suburbs, and the fleet of shipping in Hobson's Bay—will smile with incredulity at my portraiture of the Melbourne of nearly half a century ago, yet it will be limned to the life without a single shade or tint of exaggeration thrown in to set off the effect. Forty odd years is such a brief period in the life of a great city, that unless the Melbourne of 1840 could be attested by an eye witness, it is difficult even to imagine the state of things then existent as compared with the present, and there never has been a stronger verification than the comparison supplies, of Burke's famous adage, that " fiction lags after fact, invention is unfruitful, and imagination is cold and barren." Melbourne in 1840 was certainly not a city, and could hardly be called a town ; nor did it even partake of the characteristics of a village or a hamlet.
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